V
Our First Voyage
Our preparations were hurried on at Southampton, and I was never left in peace, but was in a condition of perpetual work and travel, my sole relaxation being the frequent farewell dinners given to myself and my companions by our friends and sympathisers; and very jolly as these dinners were, they were relaxations in the other sense of the term rather than reposeful amusements for a weary man. Some of them were arduous undertakings.
Our expedition interested the Southampton people a good deal, and all wished us well; but I do not think many thought that we should be successful in realizing our fortunes on Trinidad.
At last all was ready for our departure, when to my considerable disgust, just as we were about to put to sea, two of the volunteers suddenly found themselves prevented from going with us.
I forthwith telegraphed to others on my list of applicants, and at the very last moment received telegrams from two gentlemen who were willing to join at this short notice. When their messages arrived, all my crew and other companions were on board, comfortably settled down, having bidden their farewells and done with the shore; so I thought it prudent to send them away from Southampton, where the Alerte was perpetually surrounded by boatfuls of visitors, to the seclusion of the little bay under Calshot Castle at the mouth of Southampton Water. Here they would be out of the way of temptation, as there are no buildings save the coastguard station.
Therefore, on the evening of August 28, 1889, the Alerte sailed slowly down to Calshot, and came to an anchor there, while I waited at Southampton until the following morning, with the object of securing my new volunteers as soon as they should arrive, and carrying them down to the yacht.
The said volunteers turned up early on August 29. Then, with a party of some of my old Southampton friends, we steamed down the river on a launch which had been very kindly placed at our disposal for the purpose by the Isle of Wight Steamboat Company. Mr. Picket, of course, would have nothing to do with work in his yard on that day; he took a holiday and came down to see the last of us.
We were now all on board; but, finding that some of the fresh stores, such as vegetables and bread, had not yet arrived, we postponed our departure until the following day. In the meanwhile we were not idle; we sent a boat to the Hamble River to fill up those breakers that had been emptied, we got our whaleboat on deck and secured it, and, in short, made all ready for sea.
On the following day the Isle of Wight boat, while passing, left the missing stores with us; then Mr. Picket’s sloop sailed down with some friends who had determined to bid us even yet another last farewell; and, after dinner, we weighed anchor and were off, while the friends on the sloop and the crew of a yacht which was brought up near us gave us a hearty goodbye in British cheers.
But our anchor had not yet had its last hold of English mud, and we were not to lose sight of the Solent that day; for, in consequence of some clumsiness, or possibly too much zeal on the part of those who were catting the anchor, the bowsprit whisker on the starboard side was doubled up; so we had to proceed to Cowes, and bring up there while we sent the iron on shore to be put in the fire and straightened again. However, this did not delay us much, for it fell a flat calm, which lasted through the night; we were better off sleeping comfortably at anchor than we should have been drifting helplessly up and down with the tides.
At 11 a.m. the next morning, it being high-water, we weighed anchor, and were really off at last, the weather glorious and hot, but the wind light and variable.
For weeks, while we had been lying off Southampton, the weather had been detestable—blusterous northwest winds, accompanied by heavy rains, prevailing. But now, very opportunely for us, a complete change set in just as we started, and it was evident that we were at the commencement of a long spell of settled fine weather. I had anticipated this luck; for I knew by experience that the last weeks of August and the first weeks in September are the most favourable for a voyage south across the bay, for then there generally comes a period of moderate easterly winds and warm weather, which precedes the stormy season of the equinox. Thus, when I sailed in the Falcon at this very time of the year, I was fortunate enough to carry a northeast wind all the way from Southampton into the northeast trades, and I was confident that we were destined to do something of the sort now; nor was I disappointed.
We got outside the Needles, and, the wind being light from west to southwest, we tacked very slowly down Channel, always in sight of the English coast, until nightfall, when the wind dropped altogether, and we lay becalmed in sight of Portland lights. It was our first Saturday night at sea (August 31), so we kept up the good old fashion of drinking to our wives and sweethearts at eight o’clock. We never neglected this sacred duty on any Saturday night during the whole cruise. A light air from the east sprang up at night, but, though we now had racing spinnaker and topsail on the vessel, we made little progress, and it seemed as if we could not lose sight of the lights of Portland.
Throughout the following day—September 1—the same far too fine
