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Updated: June 3, 2025
To add to their danger the river shoaled rapidly, and a sandspit appeared ahead, projecting nearly two thirds of the way across the channel, and on this spit the blacks now gathered with tremendous uproar, evidently determined to make an assault on the boat as she ran the gauntlet through the narrow passage.
Two hours later the land was looming, not far ahead. Sail was got off her, and a man placed in the chains, and soundings taken. This was continued until the water shoaled to eight fathoms, when the brig was brought up, head to wind, and the anchor let go. Then an anchor watch of four men was set, and the rest of the crew allowed to turn in.
As the shot happened to strike the water, and to rise several times at a great distance beyond the canoes, the Indians were so much terrified, that without once looking behind them, they paddled away as fast as they were able. In standing westward from a small island called Mowtohora, the Endeavour suddenly shoaled her water front seventeen to ten fathom.
At 6.30 A.M. weighed, with a light breeze from the southward, and steered to pass between the Bird and Macarthur Islands; at noon abreast of the latter; P.M., after passing Hannibal Isles, hauled in for the shore, for the purpose of picking up the whaleboat. At 5.30 P.M., having shoaled our water rather suddenly to 3 1/2 fathoms, hard bottom, anchored about a mile off shore.
'Hello, the buoy-lantern's out! He stopped the engines. A moment or two later he said 'Why, there it is again! So he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads. Gradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr. Thornburg muttered 'Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the reef. Seems to be a little too far to the left.
Chase was immediately given, but the water shoaled, and the pilot was asked if they could stand on. He replied in the affirmative, stating that they were now in the shallowest water, and that it was deeper within. The leadsman was ordered into the chains, but at the first heave the lead-line broke; another was sent for, and the Dort still carried on under a heavy press of sail.
He rang for the leads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel and peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed when the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines followed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a tremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and safety!
When these floating leviathans are off the coast of Newfoundland, they encounter the waters of the Gulf Stream, melt, and scatter their débris of stony matter over a large area of the ocean bed. This process, having gone on for thousands of years, has shoaled the ocean in certain parts, forming the so-called Banks of Newfoundland.
The weight flew after a single whir, the line whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and the man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the soundings in feet. "Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, fourteen . . ." Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses.
For the first two miles we had plenty of water, that is to say, there was never less than five fathoms under our keel; but with the narrowing of the creek it shoaled rapidly, so that by the time we had gone another mile we found ourselves in a stream about a hundred yards wide and only six feet deep.
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