Between Sea and Sky
Sixteen days in an open boat, steering by memory alone.
For sixteen days the tiny boat fought its way across the wildest ocean on earth.
Mountains of grey water rose around them, no matter how bravely the six men rowed.
The froze instantly, and their soaked coats turned to armour of solid, cracking ice.
Their hands raw, the men bailed water day and night to keep the boat .
No matter how hard they worked, the sea always found new ways to pour aboard.
The compass swinging wildly, they steered by memory, by , and by desperate hope.
Sleep was almost impossible, no matter how heavy their aching eyes became each night.
Their food nearly gone, they measured each mouthful as though it were made of gold.
The sky hidden by cloud, Weller could not fix their position for four endless days.
No matter how often he checked the chart, he could only guess where they were.
Then, for one brief hour, the clouds parted, and he seized his single chance.
His frozen fingers trembling, he measured the sun and marked their place upon the map.
They were close, yet a single mistake now would carry them past the island forever.
No matter how tired they grew, not one man dared to speak of turning back.
On the fourteenth day a piece of seaweed drifted past the wooden hull.
Land birds appeared next, wheeling overhead, no matter how far the nearest shore should be.
Hope returning, the men pulled harder against the grey and mountainous waves.
Then a storm struck, fiercer than any they had faced upon the whole terrible voyage.
The wind screaming, they clung to the boat as it climbed and fell through the dark.
No matter how the waves attacked, the little craft somehow rose again and again.
At dawn the storm broke, and there, at last, stood the black cliffs of the island.
Their strength almost gone, the men steered the boat toward a narrow, rocky shore.
No matter how the fought them, they drove the craft onto the stony beach.
They fell upon the land, weeping and laughing, no longer certain they were truly alive.
Against every law of the sea, six men in a small boat had crossed the impossible.
But the whaling station lay across the island's mountains, which no man had ever crossed.