Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1908-11-04

SKO HGl9 ssisSSNEsA3 STS sS&rA
aIeebergs, ehc" said Captain Sar
gent Spinney, in reply to question
from a knot OF school cadets huddlec
round the stove in the Cape ann Sea
mans Bethel. "Oh, yes, good many
all told. Mostly OFF in TIE distance
though"
/, Seating himself astride q chair, he
stared rehertively through the banl
of crimson geranium blooms in the
window out. upon the shipping in the
harbor.
Although I continued to hold VI
before me volume of Geodetic Sur
vey Records, in which I had been
studying the singular changes in the
coast-line, I lost all; interest in its
contents, and found my eyes wander
ing expectantly to the rugged skip
per.
Cape Ann fishermen up in north
ern waters" said he, don't so in for
scenery much; it's mostly halibut.
Once in a while duck or seal, and
sometimes a game and dicker with
the Eskimos-but it's mostly hall
but
But spring before last We ran the
Nancy Lee up to latitude fifty-f1ve
degrees and ffty-six minutes. That's
about one hundred aud sixty miles
east by north OF Cape Harrigan, and
not far from the queer little settle
ments of the Moravians. Twas as
far up as we could get on account Of
drift ice.
1.-The Nancy is only an eighty-ton-
ner, and though she is Essex-huilt,
and as clever and able for her tons
as any craft fishing out of this port,
she was never timbered to bunt arctic
ice in those fierce currents and windy
fogs- It's nearly always foggy up
there, and when it blows it blows.
The sea was full of field ice, a
good deal of it full-Gedged bergs
higher than the burgae On our top
stick Set travis? guess not! We
didn't even t.y tie bottom or send
down an anchor.
{ First blow kept us busy, then a
SNOW; wet, heavy snow, too, that
stacked up all over the deck and sail.
and weighted her down so that we
had to wear often and take it on the
other quarter to keep her trim. And
fog! Twas foggy all the time.
So we headed her back south
again, and ran until we found hun
sdreG and Fifty fathoms of water, about
one hundred and twenty miles east CT
Belle Isle. We had fshed along. here
many trips before, and felt quite tidy
sand homelike when we hove over the
.da5es and got the gear all out and
fishing.
4, The sun came out and shone
bright in the blue, and fer nearly a
week we found good trawling. We
Hrad two-thirds of a trip in the hold,
when one morning up shot big Judic
Chisholm in the Therese Prindall, and
we hailed him. Twas on that day,
Friday, that 3 lot Of poor judgment
tries to hide behind.
Z We've got only about ten thou
sand fish and thirty of fetchers in her
noWr he sung out as he flew by.
Going to try for better berth south
IA bM.'
I Better berth south, Ell, thought
I, as I watched them bear OF to
son'west, his dories all nested and
made fast, both anchors taken on
deck, and the craft setting so deep
that If she had fish in her she had a
good sixty thousand pounds.
Teaches me Judic have likeEe
catch in her already, cap'n,' blurted
Page Rowe. who sat beside me on the
house
Aye spoke he again, I say he's
ON the clean leap for home by the
outside course this very minute.
Takes navigator to slip through the
straits
~tMe, too,' Joined in Buster Plum
mer. The Cape Ann Halibut Com
pany's wharf is like to be that berth
south bit he have in mind, fancy.
Judic's crafty bundle. He be that
While we sat there watching them
mp staysail and up topsail running
of more to westward all the time, l
calculated in my mind the difference
fn the price OF the first spring trip
landed and the second, though twas
t3oly an hours difference in hailing
tie market No fisherman likes to
De shown the way home to market.
we baited up again that day, and
Ihe next morning the dories began
to come in with good fish from that
nights set Eut before all hands got
aboard the glass began to falls and
dropped steadily until, through that
golden sunshine. all hands stared into
trouble ot one kind or another. So
before noon we were headed for home
by way Of Belle Isle Strait. with a
Gair trip tucked away.
I'm glad for one,' said Toby
Snow. Toby's black man. Negroes
are scarcer than Irishmen aboard a
fisherman, but Toby's one. Good ne
gro, but poor fisherman.
.Alabama's de place. said he.