Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/79

 by members of the cockroach colony that seemed to have selected me as a site to hold a mass meeting. From a second troubled doze upon my turtle pillow I was awakened by a shout and, going to the foot of the scuttle, saw my husband holding the tiller, giving orders in not sweet Spanish. His attention had been attracted by a strange sound; peering through the darkness he saw that the boat was sailing straight toward breakers, but a few yards ahead. A glance showed him that the man at the helm was sound asleep; he pushed him aside and veered the boat.

Not even a star glimmered overhead; we therefore went back about half a mile and hove to till morning. Daylight showed that we were entirely out of our course, and had been close upon the reefs at the entrance of Ascension Bay, where the water is very deep and alive with sharks.

Ascension Bay is eight miles wide at the mouth, eleven miles in its broadest part, north and south, thirteen miles east and west. The greatest depth of water is eleven feet. Across the entrance there is a sandbar where the water is but six feet deep.

Only fishermen now approach this bay to stay for a few days at a time, on a cay called Culebra, or Snake, at the entrance, because all the territory