Streight of Magellan into the South Seas
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and twenty fathom of it off, and bend it again. In about half an hour, the Tamar, being very near the rocks, and not being able to purchase her anchor, made signals of distress. I was therefore obliged to stand into the bay again, and having anchored, I sent hawsers on board the Tamar, and heaved her up while she purchased her anchor, after which we heaved her to windward, and at noon, being got into a proper birth, she anchored again. We continued in our station all night, and the next morning a gale came on at W.N.W. which was still more violent than any that had preceded it; the water was torn up all round us, and carried much higher than the masts heads, a dreadful sea at the same time rolling in; so that, knowing the ground to be foul, we were in constant apprehension of parting our cables, in which case we must have been almost instantly dashed to atoms against the rocks that were just to leeward of us, and upon which the sea broke with inconceivable fury, and a noise not less loud than thunder. We lowered all the main and fore yards, let go the small bower, veered a cable and an half on the best bower, and having bent the sheet cable, stood by the anchor all the rest of the day, and till midnight, the sea often breaking half-way up our main shrouds. About one in the morning, the weather became somewhat more moderate, but continued to be very dark, rainy, and tempestuous, till midnight, when the wind shifted to the S.W. and soon afterwards it became comparatively calm and clear.
The next morning, which was the first of April, we had a stark calm, with now and then some light airs from the eastward; but the weather was again thick with hard rain, and we found a current setting strongly to the eastward. At four o’clock we got up the lower yards, unbent the sheet cable, and weighed the small bower; at eight we weighed
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 78, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/114.html