16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
sailing, with the Surprise slanting cross the
prevailing wind and often logging two hundred
sea-miles between one noon observation
and the next: weeks of close, satisfying work
for Stephen, who was delighted with Fabien's
exact and beautiful watercolours of the many
specimens still in their full glory; weeks of ardent
sailoring for Jack, with evenings full of
music: fresh fish over the side, and penguins
in constant attendance. And when at last the
anti-trades faltered and left them, within a day
the even more favourable westerlies took over.
Those were idyllic weeks; but how difficult it
was to remember them, to call them vividly to
mind as an experienced reality, a fortnight after
the ship had sailed into the true antarctic,
and more than antarctic stream, the haunt of
the wandering albatross, mollymauks in all
their variety, the great bone-breaking petrel,
the stinkpot and the ice-bird – had sailed into