Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/80

 I could have baled her out and got into her so soon as the sea had sufficiently gone down.

At last, with a violent squall, the wind shifted to N.N.E., thus blowing towards the land, instead of parallel to it as before. Here I saw my chance; my hope revived, and I determined to employ all my remaining strength in a struggle to reach the shore. I sat in the stern, and, paddling hard with the oar, I kept the boat before the wind, which, striking her uplifted bows, gave her some way through the water, and I soon discovered that she was making distinct progress. I paddled steadily on for, I should say, three hours, the boat capsizing and having to be righted every quarter of an hour or so. To cut short this long yarn—which, however, may prove instructive, and provide the reader with some useful wrinkles if he ever gets into a similar predicament—I neared the shore, and saw before me a steep rocky beach on which the surf was breaking furiously—a most dangerous place at which to attempt a landing. But the landing had to be made, so I pushed on. When about forty yards from the shore I got into a succession of steep rollers, and the boat gave her final capsize. Springing clear of her, I swam for the shore. Three times I came in on the crest of a wave, was battered and bruised by the rocks, and then carried out to sea again. But the fourth time I succeeded in clinging tightly to a rock, and, before the next wave was on me, scrambled on to dry land, having