The L'Anse sentinel., 1923-08-24
Sea Adventures
Smack of Crusoe

| lulu.
Navigation was difficult There was
food for five for 30 days-on quarter
| rations. Beans from the Saginaw,
dried In the sun, had been canned, but
they fermented. All but Halford be-
came Ill. The beans were jettisoned.
The five fell back on desiccated pota-
toes, three spoonfuls a day, then two,
mixed with the fresh water aboard as
ballast. Five days out the gig lost
| her lantern. Halford tried mixing the
lanterns sperm oil, a five-gallon sup
ply, with the potatoes. The others
couldn't stand 1t. He could, and
lived.
In twenty-five days the last of the
provisions was gone. Three days later
Halford knocked a BOBBY bird on the
head. 1t made five portions, raw, with
the blood. The next meal came two
days later-a fying-ish fell on the
deck.
Pass Land In Night.
! "a day or two after that Halford,
awaking, saw land astern. They had
passed 1t in the night. The men were
done up; some were dying. The gig
was leaking A log four feet in diam
eter all but sank them. Then the
Kona broke.
Halford, best of them all physically,
dozed again. A cry awoke him-"Surf
] ahead A mistaken order from the
dying lieutenant and the gig veered
and was bowled over in the surf.
Halford held fast. The boat rode
clear. She righted. He heard groan.
One other man had come through. He
was caught In an air pocket under the
deck. But he was insane. Halford
got him through the surf, and with
him the tin box containing official dis
patches. Halford reached footing
and collapsed. Hours later he recov-
cred, his feet still in the water, but
his head on land. His one companion
was dead
OF the many dots on the Pacific
charts one is Lisiansky island, bear
Ing the name Of Russian captain
who bumped the isle in 1905. Thirty
nine years later the American whaler
Holder Borden, Captain Pell, of Fall
River, wedged In the reef. No lives
were lost and the crew salvaged more
supplies than Robinson Crusoe saved.
They started gardens, hunted birds
and turtles, stored mp brackish water
There was plenty of 1t, through some
freak Of nature though FIVE months
brought only twelve hours of rain.
Also, they fashioned saws Of hoop
iron, and In those FIVE months built a
35-ton copper-fastened schooner, the
Hope. With "a men aboard and IL
left to guard the $4,000 worth Of
salvage, the Hope sailed the thousand
miles or more to Honolulu In "a days,
and was sold there for ST. 400.
Lost on Reef.
Another Robinson Crusoe schooner
was that built by survivors Of the
Hermes. Two British whalers, the
Hermes and the Pearl, were lost ten
miles apart In 1922 on the reef that
| bears their names. A whaler picked
up the survivors In a short time, but
| twelve stayed with James Robinson,
who had started building a schooner.
They took their chances-and arrived
at Honolulu all but starved, after ten
weeks at sea.
In 1866 two Kanakas saw small
boat off the Hawaiian coast. They
swan out, shook hands all round with
! the fifteen thin strangers aboard, and,
still swimming. guided the boat
through the breakers. The fifteen
were the survivors of the clipper ship
Hornet, New York for San Francisco,
which flared up like match-a wood
en- ship filed with OLA thousand
miles south OF Cape st. Lucas, Lower
California, and $500 miles from Ha-
wall.
There had been three boats-two
quarter boats and the long boat. In
which hole, stove In In the lowering,
was plugged with blankets and shirts
and kept plugged till the end. Cap
tain Josiah A. Mitchell took a mate
two passengers and eleven seamen In
the long boat and towed the other two
boats Twenty-one days out he had to
let the smaller boats 60 by themselves.
They cut adrift with good cheer. Night
came and separation. The other two
were never heard OF again.
Made Boots Into Mush.
II There were fiying-fish for the long
boat and booby birds, dolphlns and a
bonita and q turtle. But before the
Kanakas shook hands, on the forty
third day. the fifteen had gnawed the
bare bones Of ham, had eaten the
canvas wrapping Of the ham. had
made their boots into mush, had de-
l voured their handkerchiefs. -Four bony