Chapter 19 Chapter 19 Saw a Whale

The Melville Sea, though easy to navigate, was not devoid of floes, and great ice-fields could be seen stretching to the horizon; here and there a few icebergs appeared, but motionless, as if anchored in the middle of the ice-field. The "Forward" moved briskly along the wide route with full power.The wind changes frequently, jumping suddenly from one end of the compass to the other. Changes in the direction of oceanic winds in the Arctic are a striking fact, often changing from calm to stormy in barely a few minutes.That's what Hatteras felt on June 23.This is true even in wide bays.

The most common wind is usually blowing from the ice pack to the open sea, which is extremely cold.On this day, the temperature dropped a few degrees, the wind was blowing south, and a huge torrential rain swept over the surface of the ice sheet, which then turned from rain to heavy snow.Hatteras immediately ordered the auxiliary propeller sails to be furled, but not quickly enough, and the third tier of small sails was swept away in the blink of an eye. Hatteras directed his crew to work with the coolest air, and did not leave the decks in stormy weather; he had to flee the weather and march westward.The wind whipped up huge waves in which various ice floes separated from the surrounding ice sheet; the ship wobbled like a child's toy, and fragments of the ice floes slammed into the hull; Rising to the top of a mountainous wave; the steel prow, gathering diffused light like a melting metal pole;The propeller was out of the water, spinning idly, making a terrible sound, and the submerged blades trembled in the air.The sleet was pouring down.

The Doctor couldn't pass up such an opportunity, drenched to the bone, to stand on deck in a kind of total admiration that a scholar can feel from such a scene.Those nearest to him could not hear him; he watched silently; but while he watched he saw a strange and peculiar phenomenon in the northernmost lands. A storm is confined to a specific area and does not exceed three or four nautical miles.As a matter of fact, the wind passing over the surface of the ice-field has so much lost its strength that its destructive power cannot be carried far; and now and then the doctor sees, through the lull at sea, a clear sky and a calm sea beyond the ice-field. The Forward was safe and sound so long as she sailed along the road; it was only that she was thrown onto these moving reefs that drifted with the current.But a few hours later, Hatteras sailed his ship into the calm sea, and the furious hurricane that was raging on the horizon lingered a few chains away from the "Forward".

The Melville Sea area does not show the same features; under the influence of wind and waves, most of the icebergs drift away from the coast to the south, crossing and colliding on all sides.Hundreds could be counted; but the bay was so wide that ships could easily avoid them.The spectacle is made up of these floating gigantic objects, which vary in speed and appear to be fighting in the wide arena. The doctor was full of enthusiasm, and now Simpson, the whale gunner, came to show him the changing colors of the sea; the colors changed from dark blue to olive green;Occasionally, transparent water surfaces extend from completely obscured water surfaces.

"Well, Mr. Crawburn, what do you think of the sight?" said Simpson. "I think, my friend," answered the doctor, "that is what Skelby the Whaler thought of the color of these colored waters: that these blue waters are free from thousands of tiny animals. and jellyfish, and that's exactly what green water has; he's done a lot of experiments on that, I'd like to believe." "Oh, sir, there are other conclusions to be drawn from the different colors of the water." "Really?" "Yes, Mr. Crawburn, by the Whale Gunner, we'd be in luck if the 'Advance' was only a whaling ship."

"But," replied the doctor, "I see no sign of a whale." "Well! We'll see soon, I assure you. It's good luck for a whaler to have green currents at this latitude." "Why?" asked the doctor, interested in what the connoisseurs had to say. "Because in this green water," replied Simpson, "there are plenty of whales to be caught." "Why, Simpson?" "Because they can find more abundant food here." "Are you sure of that?" "Oh! I've tried it a hundred times in Baffin Sea, Dr. Crawburn; I don't see why it shouldn't be in Melville Bay."

"You may have a point, Simpson." "Look," replied the latter, leaning over the bulwark, "look, Mr. Crawburn." "Ah," answered the doctor, "it's almost like a ship's track!" "Oh," replied Simpson, "it's the fatty stuff that whales leave behind, and believe me, the animal that left it wouldn't be too far away!" In fact, the air is filled with a deep smell of fresh fish.So the doctor watched the water intently, and the whale gunner's prophecy was soon confirmed.Foucault's voice came from the top of the tall mast.

"A whale," he called, "downwind of us!" All eyes turned in the indicated direction; a low tornado rising from the sea appeared a nautical mile from the ship. "There! There!" cried Simpson, who could not be mistaken by experience. "It's gone," replied the doctor. "It will be found, if it is necessary," said Simpson regretfully. But, to his surprise, though no one dared to ask, Hatteras ordered the whaler to set off; he would not miss the opportunity of giving his crew the amusement, and a few barrels of oil as well.The whaling was permitted to the great satisfaction of the crew.

Four sailors aboard the whaler: Johnson in the back, commanding; Simpson in front, harpoon in hand.One cannot stop doctors from joining the ranks.The sea is fairly calm.The whaler made rapid progress, and in ten minutes she was a nautical mile from the ship. The whale took another breath and plunged again, but it quickly returned to the surface, leaving behind a mixture of steam and mucus from its nostrils fifteen feet away. "There! There!" said Simpson, pointing to a point about 800 yards from the boat. The small boat sailed towards the animal quickly, and the big boat also saw it and approached it with a small horsepower.

Huge whale eyes appear and disappear with the waves, showing a black spine, like an empty reef on the wide sea; a whale does not swim fast when it is not pursued; this whale landed lazily when. The skiff approached stealthily along the green current, for the turbid current made the whale invisible to its enemy.It is always a thrilling spectacle to attack these colossal creatures by a small boat, about 130 feet in length, and it is not uncommon to encounter whales over 180 feet in length between 72° and 80° N; but These animals should be classified as imaginary animals. Soon the skiff was next to the whale.With a signal from Simpson, the oars stopped, he swung his harpoon, and the seasoned sailor hurled it hard; fat layer.The injured whale dived into the water with its tail thrown back.Immediately the four oars were raised vertically; the ropes fastened to the harpoon and set forward flew away, and the boat was dragged, and Johnson steered it nimbly.

The whale swam away from the ship and toward the moving iceberg in the middle of the swim; he kept on doing that for half an hour; the harpoon line should be wet so that it doesn't rub and catch fire.When the whale's swimming speed seemed to be slowing down, the rope was pulled up little by little and gathered very carefully in circles, and the whale soon appeared on the surface again, beating the water with its huge tail; It fell on the boat like a rainstorm.The skiff approached quickly; Simpson grabbed a spear and prepared to engage the animal in hand-to-hand combat. But the latter managed to escape through a passage between two icebergs.Hunting has become extremely difficult. "Damn it!" Johnson said. "Onward! Onward! Calm down, my friends," cried Simpson, in the frenzy of the hunt; "The whale is ours!" "But we can't follow it into the iceberg," replied Johnson, commanding the boat. "Yes! Yes!" Simpson shouted. "No! No!" said some of the sailors. "Yes!" cried the other sailors. While arguing endlessly, the whale ran between two icebergs, and the wind and waves were about to gather the two icebergs together. The hauled skiff was nearly dragged into the perilous way when Johnson threw himself forward, ax in hand, and cut the rope. At the nick of time, the two icebergs closed together with an irresistible force, squeezing the fearsome animal between them. "It's over!" Simpson yelled. "Saved!" Johnson replied. "Indeed!" said the doctor, without frowning. "It's worth seeing!" The force of the impact of the iceberg is enormous.Whales fall prey to accidents common in these waters.Skelby tells of thirty whales dying in Baffin Sound in a single summer; he saw a three-masted ship crushed in a minute by two great walls of ice, Closing together at an astonishing speed, the boat disappeared completely.He saw with his own eyes that the hulls of the other two ships seemed to have been pierced by spears, pierced by sharp ice edges more than 100 feet long, and two icebergs were closed together through the hulls. After a while, the boat approached the ship and returned to its original position on the deck. "A lesson," exclaimed Sandon, "a lesson to the unwary who venture in the fairway!"