Day Thirteen
No location recorded
"Every thing peaceful and still becalmed.
At 1.30 am the Bosun and I brailed in the spanker. 2.30 am we went about ship. It is a long job hauling the yards round when there is no wind to help them round. We finished at 3.30. When I came on deck at 8.00 am I found the port watch had hauled them round again. At 9.00 am we had the pleasure of going about ship again and we repeated the performance again at 10.30.
At 12.15 pm we caught a shark, a vicious looking bottle-nosed blue back shark. We put him on deck and out knives to cut him up. We drained the oil from a cell in the head and put his tail on the end of the jib boom. There were no rings or other ornaments of value inside him. Although while cutting his heart out we cut it, it went on beating till sunset. In the end there was the mangled remains amid its blood which was dark red in a great patch on the deck. The sharky smell is horrid and clinging, it is still on our knives and will stay for a week. The shark was about 6 feet long. I have been calling it a "he" but it was really a shark of the female sex. Its "hubby" was hanging round and was much larger. It had a pilot fish which led it to the hook but it only tasted the bait and would not bite.
We squared the yards this evening but it is still a calm. Everything is quiet, a block creaks here and a yard groans there. The water is like a sheet of glass. The sails hang and flap now and again. The still night is broken by the loud clangs of the bell, first aft then for'ard. Then comes the lookout's low cry of "All's Well" and the mate's answer "alright. Then quietness. Over the water the sound of a whale spouting is discernable at times. For the rest peace and quietness reigns supreme."