| ⚪ | Sunday, 25th | Christmas day! First of all this morning I was at the wheel from 12 - 2 a.m. Grand breeze has come up, and we are off again. I wrote home and said I expected to be on the equator on the 25th, but instead we are 42 degrees south of it, through head winds, and calms. We are just 2,420 miles away from the place I expected to be in. In other words, we are almost as near to the South pole as to the equator. All day it has been a kind of a “Scotch mist” so in that respect it is “Seasonable weather”. Every Christmas has been wet some way, either the water coming thunderding down on top of you from the bulwarks, or rain. This is the nicest Christmas day I have had on board. Curious the first and third Christmas days were spent near each other and the second and fourth close to each other. The first was between the Bay of Biscay and the North Atlantic, the second in the Pacific, the third in the North Atlantic, the fourth in the South Pacific. I hope the fifth is in Scotland. We have never been lucky enough to be in port for Christmas or New Year's day. Just to be a little like home, we are all wishing each other “A Merry Xmas” and in every case the answer is “I wish it was” and “I hope it will be the last at sea”. The Xmas dinner was (if possible,) worse than usual. The “Bill-of-Fare” was Tinned mutton, Potatoes, and Duff. Beautiful list isn't it? After dinner all hands had a small glass of run each. I hope you are all having a very merry and happy Xmas. Can't help feeling very melancholy today some how. Almost like a fish out of water. I am getting accustomed to these miserable Xmases now. | |
| Monday, 26th | Christmas is once again over, and the week is going on just the same as any other. Several of the men who are “gaol birds” said that they have spent far better Christmases in gaol. I quite believe them. Splendid wind right aft, and we are dashing ahead well. Fine weather. Painting. | ||
| Tuesday, 27th | Started holystoning the poop. This is a job it is impossible to do right, for if you do too much you are told you wish to get it finished, and therefore running over it, and if you take your time you are “loafing”. It is a blooming miserable job at the best. Splendid fair wind. | ||
| Wednesday, 28th Lat 40°49’S Long 137°23’W |
Blowing half a gale but still holystoning. Furled Light staysails and royals, hanging on to all the rest splendidly. The foresail carried away with a bang, and we were up for an hour and a half unbending the split sail and bending a new one. It is a rot of a job, when it is blowing a gale, as it was it was nearly blown into the sea. I wish it had, then we wouldn't have any more trouble with it. All day we have been dashing ahead at 10 and 11 knots. | ||
| Thursday, 29th | Great excitement this morning at 12 a.m. Just as the watch was relieved a large three master suddenly hove out of the darkness and tried to cut across*our bows. Both ships were running about 10 knots as there was a stiff breeze on. If we had collided there would have been a little heap of old iron at the bottom of the Pacific by this time. We of course gave way to her and went past her stern. They seemed to have had a bit of a fright too, because someone kept waving a white light over their stern till she was about two miles away. The Old Man was up in his night-shirt. I think he remembered Lowestoft. Strong wind and now going North. Still holystoning. *She was doing the same thing as the ‘Magnet’ tried in the Lowestoft affair. |
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| ⚪ | Friday, 30th | Still holystoning the poop. It is an extremely sickening job, and you are always glad when eight bells go. The Old Man has got the carpenter to raise our doorstep almost a foot and a half. It is now about two feet high and it is like a steeplechase when a job comes. Those with short legs usually get shoved over. This is of course to keep the heavy seas from coming into the sail locker. | |
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