Reefs and Shoals

make the best of a dangerous serendipity!

“I daresay we’ve been bitten by the mysterious magnetic variations hereabouts, sir,” Mr. Caldwell said with a scowl. “Bermuda’s infamous for them, sometimes up to six degrees or so, and no explaining why. They’re not seasonal, nor tied to the phases of the moon, tides, or weather.” Caldwell shrugged and gloomed in perplexity.

“Sounds spooky,” Lt. Merriman commented.

“Let’s not let the ship’s people hear any of that, hey?” Lewrie muttered to Merriman, laying a finger upon his lips for a moment. “We have enough superstitions amongst ’ em already. Carry on Mister Merriman. Now we believe we’re in deeper, safer waters, I’ll take a short ‘caulk’ in my deck chair.”

“Very good, sir, aye,” Merriman replied.

* * *

The dawn did not bring an auspicious landfall, either. As the Forenoon Watch began at 8 A.M., the winds began to freshen once more, and the inshore waters fretted and chopped in white caps and white horses, with ruffling cat’s paws over the surface. There was a heavy, scudding overcast that made the early morning shadowless and gloomy, and there was a strong smell of rain in the offing, to boot.

Oddly, though, Bermuda could not have been a more welcome sight if they had stood in in bright daylight, for, as their frigate cautiously neared St. David’s Head, the shoal waters turned lighter and clearer blue, the shores fringed in aqua green with pure white waves breaking upon almost pinkish-tan beaches, beneath the ruddy limestone headlands. And the island was so brightly green! There were trees, some fronded or spiky like palms or palmettos, flowering bushes, and open grassy spaces, perhaps lawns or croplands, and all the flora lush and verdant in an entire palette of green. Quite unlike some islands in the West Indies that could look brown and shrivelled in the sun and talced with dust, Bermuda appeared as if everything had been freshly watered and washed for their arrival.

The Sailing Master, his Mates, and the trusted senior Midshipmen busily plied their sextants to take the measurements of the known heights and prominent sea-marks, working out the distances from shore, and the known dangers of the shallows and submerged reefs noted on the charts.

“Do we stand on as we are, sir,” the Sailing Master said after a long, grim musing over the chart pinned to the traverse board, “we will enter Five Fathom Hole. There is an anchorage area just North of there, where we can find six or seven fathoms, and firm sand and rock holding ground… or so the chart promises.”

“Right there?” Lewrie asked, pointing a finger at the chart. The area that Mr. Caldwell was recommending lay close to the infamous Sea Venture Shoals… uncomfortably close, to his lights! He took a long look about to judge the wind direction, worrying that it might be foul for entering St. George’s Harbour proper. “Mister Westcott? Best bower and stern kedge, the kedge to be let go first as we crawl on. Unless a pilot takes pity on us.”

“Aye, sir,” the First Officer replied.

“Speak of the Devil, sir,” Mr. Caldwell said, pointing towards Town Cut, the very narrow entry channel into harbour. “There’s one of the harbour pilots coming to us, just now.”

Lewrie fetched his telescope and spotted a singled-masted boat coming out of the channel ’twixt St. George’s Island, tiny Biggs Island, and St. David’s Island which formed the Southern shore of the harbour. Its jib and gaff- headed mainsail did an uncertain shiver as it left the Cut, a sure sign to Lewrie that it would be a right-bastard set of swirls and back-eddies in there, too uncertain a wind to risk Reliant, this day at least. Once clear, the boat’s sails cracked wind-full, and she began to bound over the choppy inshore waters like a running stag, bound for his ship. As she drew closer, Lewrie could espy three occupants; a lad about twelve or so to handle the sheets, one even younger at the tiller, and an older man in the boat’s amidships.

“I say, that looks fun,” Midshipman Munsell tittered. “Should we ever have the time, we could stage boat races.”

The pilot boat-if that was what it was-passed ahead of Reliant, swung about in a wide turn, and jibed about to swan close to the starboard main chains, and the opened entry-port.

“Hoy, what ship, there?” the older man shouted up, using an old brass speaking-trumpet.

“The Reliant frigate, Captain Alan Lewrie!” Mr. Caldwell called back for them. “You are a pilot, sir?”

“Warrick, and I am!” the fellow replied, beaming broadly under a wide-brimmed straw planter’s hat. “Shall I come up, sir?”

“Aye! Come alongside.”

The lad at the tiller, no older than ten, deftly put the tiller over and brought the boat to within inches of the channel platform as the slightly older boy hooked on with a gaff. A second later and Mr. Warrick was scrambling up the boarding battens, and the boat sheered off to stand alee.

“Good morning, all,” Warrick said, doffing his hat to the officers gathered on the quarterdeck.

“Good morning, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said, stepping forward and doffing his own hat in salute. “Your servant, sir.”

“Nay, I’m more yours, Cap’m Lewrie,” Warrick replied, “if you wish to enter port. Though the wind’s not good for that, today. We can find you a good anchorage, just off yonder, ’til the morrow, and guide you in then. What’s your draught, sir?”

“About eighteen feet, right aft,” Lewrie supplied.

“Good, long scope, to a bower and kedge, I’m thinking? Good,” Warrick said, noting that the hawse-bucklers had been removed, a kedge was already attached to a stern cable, and the best, larboard bower anchor was swinging free of cat and fish lashings. “There’s many the cautious masters that’ll anchor out, anyway, and send their boats in through the Cut for provisions. Do you not have need of lading cargo, or landing goods, the anchorage’ll suit you fine.

“Mind, sir, my fee’s the same for either,” Warrick said with a smug grin, naming a goodly sum for his services, one which made every officer, and Lewrie, wince. “These are dangerous waters, gentlemen, more so than most. Without a pilot aboard, you’d be lost and wrecked in a twinkling.”

“Carry on, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said. “Do you require cash, a note of hand, or an Admiralty chit?”

“Cash is topping fine, Cap’m Lewrie,” Warrick breezed off, then turned his full attention to the sails, the course, and the sea-marks. “Hoy, lads. A half point loo’rd, if you will,” he said to the men on the helm, bypassing the watch officers. Reliant was now wholly in his hands.

The frigate swung off to starboard a bit as she came level with Little Head, standing out to avoid a shoal noted as the Spit. To the West was revealed a maze of islets; Paget and Biggs, the larger Smith’s Island, and behind that, in the harbour proper, little Hen Island, all in clear green waters as shallow as six to nine feet, and even the Town Cut entrance looked suspiciously shallow, to Lewrie.

Damned right I’ll not move without a pilot aboard, he vowed to himself; no matter how much they charge me!

“Cap’m sir,” Warrick said at last, “do you let go your kedge and let it pay out half a cable about here, then you’re good to swing up to windward, go flat a’back, then drop the bower on a short scope for the nonce, ’til you’ve balanced between them, you’ll find good holding ground.”

“Very well, sir, and thankee. Mister Westcott? Let go the kedge, half a cable scope.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Do you wish to enter port proper tomorrow, sir, it’s good odds that the wind’ll shift astern of you, and you can trust your kedge to hold you at full scope whilst you take up the bower,” Warrick suggested. “Then, it’s smooth sailing right up the Cut, holding Sugarloaf Hill fine on your bows. You hoist a flag for a pilot, and me and my boys’ll see you right.”

“I’d not try it on without you, Mister Warrick,” Lewrie said, which seemed to please the man. “Once we’re anchored, might I offer you a glass of something, and ask you a few questions about Bermuda? This is, I believe, the first time any of us have put in here.”

“That’d be right kindly of you, sir,” Warrick replied.

It lacked half an hour ’til “Clear Decks and Up Spirits” by the time Reliant was safely anchored, and all her sails at long last brailed up in harbour gaskets or handed and stowed. The crew would get the rum issue a bit later, but Lewrie’s wine cabinet was open, and he kept a stone crock of rum for just such a purpose.