As I said over the page, we were last night drifting north, with a land wind from the island south of us; and at about ten, I and Captain Henriksen had turned in, planning and hoping for fine weather and whales in the morning; at one-fifteen I heard the whistle in his cabin blown from the bridge and guessed a change had come—the wind had gone round—he was on deck at once, I waited a little and followed. And sure enough, without the least warning, the wind had gone right round to north-east and was rapidly rising, driving us towards these beautiful villages and cliffs and bay and volcanic mountain dead to leeward in pitch dark. Only the village lights and a small shore light could we see, bidding us anything but a welcome.
The half-hour we spent drifting towards the cliffs, speculating whether our so far rather tricky motor would start, was memorable. The waves rapidly grew large and fierce in their sweep, the phosphorescent crests in the blackness repeated the lines of lights of the villages.
... Fortunately the engine started all right, or these notes would have to have been continued about mermaids under the surf; I suppose all hands knew that if the engine didn’t start we would be drowned under the steep cliffs. They have failed us once or twice lately, but this time Hansen did his possible, and poked about, heating the cylinders with the hand furnace, whilst we grew a little cold drifting to the surf and rocks. In half-an-hour he turned on the air and they went off with a welcome clash. All hands must have felt as I did, a great sense of relief when they started, but there wasn’t time to speak. The writer took the wheel, whilst Henriksen and his brother made a rapid note in the cabin of the course and position, and we swung round into the rapidly rising sea, heading north to get weathering to round the mountainous west end of the island, and plugged into wind and sea, completely smothering ourselves in foam. The writer, struggling at the wheel on the bridge, had an unconscious impression of the crew below busied in making fast the main-hatch, and stowing away movable objects as best they could in the darkness, and seas that broke over us in wide white bursts, sometimes hiding everything from the bridge except the upper part of our foremast, its shrouds standing out black above the foam, through which we saw faintly the gleam of the galley ports.
What wild waves broke over us, leaving our deck full of seething foam, with balls of light running about in the form of lumps of phosphorus. The north-east wind and rain tearing past was a little cold, and got down one’s back, but every slop of sea on our faces was almost alarmingly hot in contrast to the wind.
It seems to me that a higher, quicker sea rises in these warm latitudes than in the colder northern or southern high latitudes, in the same time and with same force of wind. Possibly the greater density of the cold water may account for this.
Not till four-thirty did we make our weathering, and got clear of the island, and safe from what seemed at first to be quite probable destruction.
By six-thirty A.M. we were past the light on the west end of San Miguel, at least we believed we were—it was not visible; being at an elevation of three hundred feet, it was, of course, obscured by the low clouds; it is no use putting lighthouses very high, as witness Sumburgh Head, south of Shetland; I have been within two miles of it in clear water, and it was invisible in the clouds above, and we only heard its bray!
Then our guiding angel, to play with us, stopped our engine. But in spite of her, we got it to go again, and crept into the lee of San Miguel, on one or two groggy cylinders, and rolled about in the downpour of rain, and the poor engineers are now sweating again to get even one cylinder to take us back to Delgada, where we will have an overhaul; and Henriksen and I, poring over our sodden chart and the well-washed cabin amongst sea-boots and oilskins cast aside this morning, decide that the weather of the Azores is not suited for whaling at this time of the year. If there were harbours or bays or lochs such as we have in Shetland we would stick here, but long, black nights to windward of islands, with strong gales starting from anywhere, and only one day in five smooth enough for even our St Ebba to whale in, “is not good enough.”
Now the engine is going; bravo, stick to it! Very, very slowly and gingerly—with three cylinders—we crawl away with a fearful roll to Delgada again.
But the day fades before we get opposite Ponta Delgada, a yellow sunset and rain clouds and cumuli to west, the pin-point of light on W. of the island beginning to show, and another pin-point on Delgada about ten miles to windward, so we stop engines, hoist foresail, and drift, rolling very gently and quietly, waiting for dawn, and the local pilot’s awakening; we could go into the breakwater ourselves, but his services are compulsory.