Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
On the second morning following the Torcello trip, Geof was swimming in the Adriatic, far out beyond the line of bathers, shouting and splashing; in the shallows. There, under a dazzling sky, with a strong wind blowing, and whitecaps careering about, he came face to face with the subject of his speculations. The incongruity of catechising a man of his countenance was instantly apparent.
How strangely all this differs from the blue Mediterranean we saw a fortnight ago when riding from Genoa to Leghorn, under that cloudless sky of blue; in that stirring breeze, and an almost tropical temperature, tho it was late in December; along that rocky, tunnel-pierced coast, with deep olive groves bordering the way; the sea a boundless vision of water moving and resounding against the shore; whitecaps everywhere visible on its broad expanse.
They are twice as high and twice as broad; and the lay of the land is such that the various landscapes in which the waterfall is a feature are more striking. A few hundred yards above the falls the river turns at an angle and widens. The broad, rapid shallows are crested with whitecaps.
The channel beyond the flat, which we had so lately left, was whipped to whitecaps in a moment and miniature breakers were beating against the mud bank where the dingy had grounded. Under the high bluff it was calm enough. The tide was too low to make use of the little wharf, so I beached the skiff and drew the towed boat in by the line.
The Tiger was carrying topsails and both jibs, with a single reef in her fore and main sails. She was scudding along at a great rate with the whitecaps racing by, close below the lee gunports. Jeremy whistled with delight. He had seen Stede Bonnet crowd canvas once or twice, but never in so good a cause.
The wind rose, the rain became pelting, mingling with the spume of the whitecaps racing madly past: within were warmth and luxury, electric lights, open fires, easy chairs, and men and women reading, conversing as unconcernedly as though the perils of the deep had ceased to be.
Lester Terabon rowed down the rolling river waters in the dark night. He had, of course, looked out into the Mississippi shades from the security of landing, anchorage, and sandbar; he knew the looks of the night but not the activities of currents and bends when a gale is sweeping by and the air is, by turns, penetrated by the hissing of darting whitecaps and the roar of the blustering winds.
The huge steamer, no longer moving with the ease of the leviathan, seems a tiny craft and almost helpless in the chopped seas that give to the ship a complex motion so difficult, even for old sailors, to anticipate. Tidal wave follows tidal wave in rapid succession. Both trough and crest are whipped into whitecaps like tents afield, till sea and storm seem leagued to deluge the world again.
Time and again and countless times we watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be flung back like a cork. Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small boats as he did about ships. At the end of an hour and a half he was nearly alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch us on the next leg back. "So you've changed your mind?"
In three hours it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark as I had ever seen it on the sea the wind, still blowing out of the south-west, rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set the sea-anchor. Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the boat pitching, almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent danger of being swamped by the whitecaps.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking