It is blue and sunny to-day, wind N.E., so we have set staysail and mainsail and go along in a real sailing-ship style.
But the old sea still runs high from N.W. and the wind blows little ripples down the long furrows, and the lumpy waves stop our way down to four or five knots.
In smoother water and with all hands free we would get a jib and topsail on; meantime we want the engine to work.
At night the blasts became gradually less furious and the seas less precipitous.
At two-forty as I write, rolling along through lumpy blue sea at four knots, the engineer lets on the air all have been labouring at, clash goes the engine, subsiding into its steady business-like stroke, and away we ramp; cheers from some of us. The St Ebba vindicates itself.
How our feelings are changed! “How is the air pressure?” is a question which will be poked at the engineers for many a fine day to come; and they will take care, sick or not sick, never again to let it run out. We surely do twelve knots with sails drawing and engine running. The log line will soon show....
We run all afternoon finely—sails, wind and motor—till the wind heads us and the foresail comes down, and we roll, roll as I think only a whaler can roll, and the expression on faces changes. But our engineer—mechanicien, we call him—is now no more sick and has the engine going, and is washed and is as spry as usual again.
Evening meal comes (aften-mad) with ship’s provender, which is not bad, and what is called tea in Norway; and the surges come over our bow and we sit in the tiny galley, Henriksen, styrmand, mechanicien and myself, and St Ebba rolls dishes, pots and pans all about. But what care we, reeling off eight to nine knots against wind with little or no water in our waist; an ordinary tramp at three knots against the same tumble of sea would be half under water.
Night falls, the Plough lights up, and our pole mast and crow’s nest and steamer light go swinging against it.
We ought to sight Fair Isle and Sumburgh Light and Bressay Light, Lerwick, to-night about twelve. The breeze is northerly and for these parts the air is clear and chilly and bracing, giving the energy of the northern electrical condition that we cannot explain but which we know does exist.