Sailing Alone Around the World quotes

On both sides my family were sailors; and if any Slocum should be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages.

My father was the sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way home, if he had a jackknife and could find a tree.

He was a good judge of a boat, but the old clay farm which some calamity made his was an anchor to him.

The next step toward the goal of happiness found me before the mast in a full-rigged ship bound on a foreign voyage.

Thus I came “over the bows,” and not in through the cabin windows, to the command of a ship.

My best command was that of the magnificent ship Northern Light, of which I was part owner. I had a right to be proud of her, for at that time—in the eighties—she was the finest American sailing-vessel afloat.

Now, it is a law in Lloyd’s that the Jane repaired all out of the old until she is entirely new is still the Jane.

The Spray changed her being so gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old died or the new took birth, and it was no matter.

The bulwarks I built up of white-oak stanchions fourteen inches high, and covered with seven-eighth-inch white pine. These stanchions, mortised through a two-inch covering-board, I calked with thin cedar wedges. They have remained perfectly tight ever since.

The cotton never “crawled.” When the calking was finished, two coats of copper paint were slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the topsides and bulwarks. The rudder was then shipped and painted, and on the following day the Spray was launched.

As she rode at her ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water like a swan.

The Spray’s dimensions were, when finished, thirty-six feet nine inches long, over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep in the hold, her tonnage being nine tons net and twelve and seventy-one hundredths tons gross.

Then “stradding” the cable and putting my great lantern in the rigging, I lay down, for the first time at sea alone, not to sleep, but to doze and to dream.

I had read somewhere of a fishing-schooner hooking her anchor into a whale, and being towed a long way and at great speed. This was exactly what happened to the Spray⁠—in my dream!

I could not shake it off entirely when I awoke and found that it was the wind blowing and the heavy sea now running that had disturbed my short rest. A scud was flying across the moon. A storm was brewing;

At 9:40 p.m. I raised the sheen only of the light on the west end of Sable Island, which may also be called the Island of Tragedies. The fog, which till this moment had held off, now lowered over the sea like a pall.

I was in a world of fog, shut off from the universe.

I did not see any more of the light. By the lead, which I cast often, I found that a little after midnight I was passing the east point of the island, and should soon be clear of dangers of land and shoals.

About midnight the fog shut down again denser than ever before. One could almost “stand on it.” It continued so for a number of days, the wind increasing to a gale. The waves rose high, but I had a good ship.

Still, in the dismal fog I felt myself drifting into loneliness, an insect on a straw in the midst of the elements.

I lashed the helm, and my vessel held her course, and while she sailed I slept.

This incident gave the turn in my favor. My story was then clear to all. I have found this the way of the world.

Let one be without a friend, and see what will happen!

Passing the island of Pico, after the rigging was mended, the Spray stretched across to leeward of the island of St. Michael’s, which she was up with early on the morning of July 26, the wind blowing hard.

She was, indeed, a stale one! And the poor cattle, how they bellowed! The time was when ships passing one another at sea backed their topsails and had a “gam,” and on parting fired guns; but those good old days have gone.

People have hardly time nowadays to speak even on the broad ocean, where news is news, and as for a salute of guns, they cannot afford the powder.

There are no poetry-enshrined freighters on the sea now; it is a prosy life when we have no time to bid one another good morning.

No one hailed from the white-winged flier, but I heard someone on board say that he saw lights on the sloop, and that he made her out to be a fisherman.

I sat long on the starlit deck that night, thinking of ships, and watching the constellations on their voyage.

On the following day, September 13, a large four-masted ship passed some distance to windward, heading north.

… to right the dory, and I was just saying, “Now I lay me,” when I was seized by a determination to try yet once more, so that no one of the prophets of evil I had left behind me could say, “I told you so.”

Whatever the danger may have been, much or little, I can truly say that the moment was the most serene of my life.

After righting the dory for the fourth time, I finally succeeded by the utmost care in keeping her upright while I hauled myself into her and with one of the oars, which I had recovered, paddled to the shore, somewhat the worse for wear and …

The wind freshened, and I took in a third reef. The sea was confused and treacherous. In such a time as this the old fisherman prayed,

“Remember, Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide!”

I saw now only the gleaming crests of the waves. They showed white teeth while the sloop balanced over them. “Everything for an offing,” I cried, and to this end I carried on all the sail she would bear.

I saw to it that not a few of them stood “business end” up; for when the Spray passed Thieves’ Bay two canoes had put out and followed in her wake, and there was no disguising the fact any longer that I was alone.

Now, it is well known that one cannot step on a tack without saying something about it.

A pretty good Christian will whistle when he steps on the “commercial end” of a carpet-tack;

… times around a small island, against my will, it seemed more than one’s nerves could bear, and I had to speak about it, so I thought, or die of lockjaw, and I apostrophized the Spray as an impatient farmer might his horse or his ox.

“Didn’t you know,” cried I⁠—“didn’t you know that you couldn’t climb a tree!”

But the poor old Spray had essayed, and successfully too, nearly everything else in the Strait of Magellan, and my heart softened toward her when I thought of what she had gone through. Moreover, she had discovered an island.

One wave, in the evening, larger than others that had threatened all day—one such as sailors call “fine-weather seas,”—broke over the sloop fore and aft. It washed over me at the helm, the last that swept over the Spray off Cape Horn.

It seemed to wash away old regrets. All my troubles were now astern; summer was ahead; all the world was again before me.

The wind was even literally fair. My “trick” at the wheel was now up, and it was 5 p.m. I had stood at the helm since eleven o’clock the morning before, or thirty hours.

summer was ahead; all the world was again before me. The wind was even literally fair. My “trick” at the wheel was now up, and it was 5 p.m. I had stood at the helm since eleven o’clock the morning before, or thirty hours.

Then was the time to uncover my head, for I sailed alone with God.

The vast ocean was again around me, and the horizon was unbroken by land. A few days later the Spray was under full sail, and I saw her for the first time with a jigger spread.

The adults were mostly from the mainland of South America. One lady there, from Chile, who made a flying-jib for the Spray, taking her pay in tallow, would be called a belle at Newport. Blessed island of Juan Fernandez!

Why Alexander Selkirk ever left you was more than I could make out.

A large ship which had arrived some time before, on fire, had been stranded at the head of the bay, and as the sea smashed her to pieces on the rocks, after the fire was drowned, the islanders picked up the timbers and utilized them …

I heard water rushing by, with only a thin plank between me and the depths, and I said, “How is this?” But it was all right; it was my ship on her course, sailing as no other ship had ever sailed before in the world.

The rushing water along her side told me that she was sailing at full speed.

I knew that no human hand was at the helm; I knew that all was well with “the hands” forward, and that there was no mutiny on board.

Hungry sharks came about the vessel often when she neared islands or coral reefs. I own to a satisfaction in shooting them as one would a tiger.

Sharks, after all, are the tigers of the sea.

Nothing is more dreadful to the mind of a sailor, I think, than a possible encounter with a hungry shark.

For food the islanders have only to put out their hand and take what nature has provided for them; if they plant a banana tree, their only care afterward is to see that too many trees do not grow.

They have great reason to love their country and to fear the white man’s yoke, for once harnessed to the plow, their life would no longer be a poem.

The chief of the village of Caini, who was a tall and dignified Tonga man, could be approached only through an interpreter and talking man.

“We’ve lost our dinghy, too,” they cried.

“God is good, else you would have lost yourselves,” and “Farewell” was all I could say.

The trifling service proffered by the Spray would have saved their vessel.

May 31, the yacht Akbar, from Sydney for New Guinea, three hands on board, lost at Crescent Head; the crew saved.

So it took them several days to lose the yacht, after all.

After speaking the distressed Akbar and the Sherman, the voyage for many days was uneventful save in the pleasant incident on May 16 of a chat by signal with the people on South Solitary Island, a dreary stone heap in the ocean just off the …

From the pitch of the cape was a noble light seen twenty-seven miles; passing from this to Lady Elliott Light, which stands on an island as a sentinel at the gateway of the Barrier Reef, the Spray was at once in the fairway leading north.

Poets have sung of beacon-light and of Pharos, but did ever poet behold a great light flash up before his path on a dark night in the midst of a coral sea?

If so, he knew the meaning of his song.

It is often wild enough in one part or another. I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.

But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea were there no wild waves?

At last here was the Spray in the midst of a sea of coral. The sea itself might be called smooth indeed, but coral rocks are always rough, sharp, and dangerous.

This took my breath, but a bright schoolboy coming along relieved my embarrassment, for, like all boys, seeing that information was wanted, he volunteered to supply it.

Said he: “Captain Cook wasn’t murdered ’ere at all, ma’am; ’e was killed in Hafrica: a lion et ’im.”

Here I was reminded of distressful days gone by. I think it was in 1866 that the old steamship Soushay, from Batavia for Sydney, put in at Cooktown for scurvy-grass, as I always thought, and “incidentally” to land mails.

It was my good fortune to enter the sea on the last quarter of the moon, the advantage being that in the dark nights I witnessed the phosphorescent light effect at night in its greatest splendor.

The sea, where the sloop disturbed it, seemed all ablaze, so that by its light I could see the smallest articles on deck, and her wake was a path of fire.

On the 25th of June the sloop was already clear of all the shoals and dangers, and was sailing on a smooth sea as steadily as before, but with speed somewhat slackened.

Before night it was abeam and distant two and a half miles. The surface of the island appeared evenly rounded from the sea to a considerable height in the center.

In outline it was as smooth as a fish, and a long ocean swell, rolling up, broke against the sides, where it lay like a monster asleep, motionless on the sea.

It seemed to have the proportions of a whale, and as the sloop sailed along its side to the part where the head would be, there was a nostril, even, which was a blowhole through a ledge of rock where every wave that dashed threw …

In reply to which the captain, burning with indignation, shouted from the center of the island, where he stood, “Ahoy, there, on Prison Island! You Hare, don’t you know that rum and roast pig are not a sailor’s heaven?”

Hare said afterward that one might have heard the captain’s roar across to Java.

The lawless establishment was soon broken up by the women deserting Prison Island and putting themselves under Ross’s protection. Hare then went to Batavia, where he met his death.

They found the Spray hauled ashore and tied to a coconut-tree. But at the Keeling Islands there had not been a grievance to complain of since the day that Hare migrated, for the Rosses have always treated the islanders as their own family.

If there is a paradise on this earth it is Keeling.

There was not a case for a lawyer, but something had to be done, for here were two ships in port, a great man-of-war and the Spray.

The first Scotch settlers left there the strength of Northern blood and the inheritance of steady habits. No benevolent society has ever done so much for any islanders as the noble Captain Ross, and his sons, who have followed his example of industry and thrift.

Admiral Fitzroy of the Beagle, who visited here, where many things are reversed, spoke of “these singular though small islands, where crabs eat coconuts, fish eat coral, dogs catch fish, men ride on turtles, and shells are dangerous mantraps,”

adding that the greater part of the sea-fowl roost on branches, and many rats make their nests in the tops of palm-trees.

If one thing was clearer than another in her voyage, it was that she could be trusted to come out right and in safety, though at the same time I always stood ready to give her the benefit of even the least doubt.

The officers who are over-sure, and “know it all like a book,” are the ones, I have observed, who wreck the most ships and lose the most lives.

The cause of the discrepancy in the log was one often met with, namely, coming in contact with some large fish; two out of the four blades of the rotator were crushed or bent, the work probably of a shark.

… of the trade-wind, and the strong breeze that had carried her with free sheets the many thousands of miles from Sandy Cape, Australia, fell lighter each day until October 30, when it was altogether calm, and a motionless sea held her in a hushed world.

I furled the sails at evening, sat down on deck, and enjoyed the vast stillness of the night.

October 31 a light east-northeast breeze sprang up, and the sloop passed Cape St. Mary about noon. On the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of November, in the Mozambique Channel, she experienced a hard gale of wind from the southwest.

“Patience is all that is required,” I ventured to reply. He then asked if my vessel had watertight compartments. I explained that she was all watertight and all compartment. “What if she should strike a rock?” he asked.

“Compartments would not save her if she should hit the rocks lying along her course,” said I; adding, “she must be kept away from the rocks.”

After a considerable pause Mr. Stanley asked, “What if a swordfish should pierce her hull with its sword?” Of course I had thought of that as one of the dangers of the sea, and also of the chance of being struck by lightning.

After a considerable pause Mr. Stanley asked, “What if a swordfish should pierce her hull with its sword?” Of course I had thought of that as one of the dangers of the sea, and also of the chance of being struck by lightning.

In the case of the swordfish, I ventured to say that “the first thing would be to secure the sword.”

The colonel invited me to dine with the party on the following day, that we might go further into this matter, and so I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Stanley a second time, but got no more hints in navigation from the famous explorer.

It was a nugget of information quarried out of Oom Paul, some of whose sayings are famous. Of the English he said, “They took first my coat and then my trousers.” He also said,

“Dynamite is the cornerstone of the South African Republic.” Only unthinking people call President Krüger dull.

Soon after my arrival at the cape, Mr. Krüger’s friend Colonel Saunderson, who had arrived from Durban some time before, invited me to Newlands Vineyard, where I met many agreeable people.

Dr. David Gill, astronomer royal, who was of the party, invited me the next day to the famous Cape Observatory.

An hour with Dr. Gill was an hour among the stars.

His discoveries in stellar photography are well known.

The ladies of all these institutions of learning wished to know how one might sail round the world alone, which I thought augured of sailing-mistresses in the future instead of sailing-masters.

It will come to that yet if we menfolk keep on saying we “can’t.”

On the plains of Africa I passed through hundreds of miles of rich but still barren land, save for scrub-bushes, on which herds of sheep were browsing.

I have often been asked how it was that my vessel and all appurtenances were not stolen in the various ports where I left her for days together without a watchman in charge. This is just how it was:

The Spray seldom fell among thieves.

At the Keeling Islands, at Rodriguez, and at many such places, a wisp of coconut fiber in the door-latch, to indicate that the owner was away, secured the goods against even a longing glance.

They made merry the livelong day. One of the joyful sights on the ocean of a bright day is the continual flight of these interesting fish.

One could not be lonely in a sea like this.

Moreover, the reading of delightful adventures enhanced the scene. I was now in the Spray and on the Oise in the Arethusa at one and the same time.

Mr. Schank said that he had lost many cows and bullocks, as well as sheep, from breakneck over the steep cliffs and precipices. One cow, he said, would sometimes hook another right over a precipice to destruction, and go on feeding unconcernedly.

It seemed that the animals on the island farm, like mankind in the wide world, found it all too small.

On the 26th of April, while I was ashore, rollers came in which rendered launching a boat impossible.

… the rest of the night I saw imaginary reefs, and not knowing what moment the sloop might fetch up on a real one, I tacked off and on till daylight, as nearly as possible in the same track, all for the want of a chart.

I could have nailed the St. Helena goat’s pelt to the deck.

My course was now for Grenada, to which I carried letters from Mauritius. About midnight of the 22nd of May I arrived at the island, and cast anchor in the roads off the town of St.

Then he flew into a towering passion when they on shore snickered to see the crew of the Spray sitting calmly by the bulwark instead of hoisting sail. “I tell you dis am quarantine,” he shouted, very much louder than before.

“That’s all right, general,” I replied; “I want to be quarantined anyhow.”

“That’s right, boss,” someone on the beach cried, “that’s right; you get quarantined,” while others shouted to the deputy to “make de white trash move ’long out o’ dat.” They were about equally divided on the island for and against me.

He stood in the boat as straight up and down as a fathom of pump-water—a marvel of importance.

“Charts!” cried I, as soon as his shirt-collar appeared over the sloop’s rail; “have you any charts?” “No, sah,” he replied with much-stiffened dignity; “no, sah; cha’ts do’sn’t grow on dis island.”

Not doubting the information, I tripped anchor immediately, as I had intended to do from the first, and made all sail for St. John, Antigua, where I arrived on the 1st of June, having sailed with great caution in mid-channel all the way.

But still my little ship outbraves The blust’ring winds and stormy waves.

After this storm I saw the pilot of the Pinta no more.

The experiences of the voyage of the Spray, reaching over three years, had been to me like reading a book, and one that was more and more interesting as I turned the pages, till I had come now to the last page of all, and …

After this storm I saw the pilot of the Pinta no more.

The experiences of the voyage of the Spray, reaching over three years, had been to me like reading a book, and one that was more and more interesting as I turned the pages, till I had come now to the last page of all, and the one more interesting than any of the rest.

When daylight came I saw that the sea had changed color from dark green to light. I threw the lead and got soundings in thirteen fathoms.

on June 27, 1898, cast anchor, after the cruise of more than forty-six thousand miles round the world, during an absence of three years and two months, with two days over for coming up.

Was the crew well? Was I not?

I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from Boston.

Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from Boston.

As for aging, why, the dial of my life was turned back till my friends all said, “Slocum is young again.”

And so I was, at least ten years younger than the day I felled the first tree for the construction of the Spray.