Up There: Voyage 4—Rounding the Horn
Jack, Angie, and Seph round Cape Horn on their way to Ireland.
Up There: Voyage 4—Rounding the Horn
Previous chapters
Voyage 4—Rounding the Horn
A Sorcerer? John was doubtful. But, then, Jack was doubtful, too. What had the sisters written?
“I would like to adventure with a powerful sorcerer.”
“I am no sorcerer!”
“Jack, a man who has the friendship and aid of invisible spirits is a sorcerer,” said Ananta.
“She kind of has a point, Jack,” Seph said.
Perhaps Jack felt the same way about being a sorcerer that John himself did. So he ought to be able to write it. The problem, though, was that he hadn’t read any sorcerers like that. Sorcerers or Wizards in stories were always powerful. Jack had to be a brand-new sorcerer who was just learning. And he had no one to teach him. He’d have to figure it out on his own.
“I am not a powerful sorcerer, Ananta. I’m just a sailor with gifted friends.”
“What things can you do?”
“Me? I can sail a vessel on the ocean, and I can navigate. Seph and Angie can do more than me, but I think there are some things they can’t do.”
“Like what?” Seph said, pugnaciously.
“Well,” said Jack, “Ananta can’t see or hear you.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Ananta.
“You see what I mean?” Jack said.
“HE’S TALKING TO ME, YOU GIANT WORM!” shouted Seph at Ananta.
Jack shook his head at Seph’s loud shout, almost in his ear, and looked reproachfully at her. Ananta continued to look quizzically at Jack.
“I’m talking to Angie and Seph,” Jack explained.
“Those are the names of your invisible spirit helpers?” Ananta asked.
“Yes, Angela and Persephone, as I said just a moment ago. Seph just yelled something rude at you.”
“Ooo… you traitor,” Seph hissed.
“Why?” Ananta asked.
“She was annoyed because you ignored her,” explained Angie. Jack repeated this to Ananta.
“I apologize, Lady Persephone,” Ananta said. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that I can’t see or hear you.”
Seph preened a little at “Lady Persephone.”
“The four of us can’t hold a conversation, because Ananta can’t see or hear you, Angie and Seph”
“What powers do they have?” asked Ananta.
“They have many powers! They can fly, and they can be as big or as small as they want to be. They say they can be as strong as they need to be. And they can go anywhere on Earth in a second, and come back with news of what they saw. I wonder if they can go to the moon?”
“I don’t know—I’ve never tried,” said Angie.
“They can even play music. They once played a lyre and a flute for me.” Jack went on.
“Can they read minds?” Ananta asked.
“Only yours, Jack,” Angie answered.
“What, you can read my mind?”
“Only if you let us.”
“How do I do that?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know, Jack. You have to think at us. It’s simple enough. Try it,” Angie answered.
Jack looked at Angie and thought in her direction, “Can Seph hear it when I do this?”
Angie answered, “No, I don’t think so.”
“What?” Seph said. “What did he ask?”
“I only asked her if you could hear when I thought at her” Jack answered.
“Of course not,” Seph said. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Well, none of this makes sense to me,” Jack said.
Ananta said, “From the half of that conversation that I could hear, I guess that they can read your mind.”
“So, Ireland. It’s a long way off to the northeast,” Jack said.
“How long a way?” Ananta asked.
“The straight-line distance is about 9000 miles, but we can’t sail straight there. North and South America are in the way.”
“Can we sail around them?” asked Angie.
“Yes, we can sail around South America,” Jack answered. “There are two ways. Up there to our northeast there’s a canal that joins the Pacific Ocean—that’s this ocean right here—” he gestured to the sea around them, “to the Atlantic Ocean. The north Atlantic Ocean is where Ireland is. That’s almost a straight line.”
“Straight sounds good!” Ananta said.
“There’s a problem, though. I don’t think the people who own the canal will let a giant snake through it.”
“That’s not fair,” Ananta said.
“The problem is that people are afraid of giant sea serpents like you. It doesn’t help that, when you meet someone new, you threaten to eat them.”
“Humph,” Ananta grunted, with that strangely human look of anger on her face. “What’s the second way?”
“The second way is to sail south around South America. That’s called ‘rounding the Horn.’ It’s open ocean all the way, so there won’t be anyone to object to sea serpents.”
“How much further is that?” Ananta asked.
“It’s about twice as far, so call it 18,000 miles, a three-month voyage, if all goes well. And it’s a hard passage.”
“What do you mean, ‘hard?’” Seph asked.
“Cape Horn is very far south of here, close to the South Pole, and the weather is cold and rough, and the winds can be dangerous. That won’t bother you and Angie, and I can stand it. Ananta? Do you mind cold weather?”
“Probably,” Ananta said. “But we’re tough beasts—I’m willing to give it a try.”
Now John was stuck. Well, he was a little stuck. It was obvious what had to happen next. They had to sail round the Horn. And of course it had to be exciting. They had to run into troubles, and Seph and Angie’s magic powers had to be used to save them. And it would be good if Ananta helped, too.
But John didn’t know anything about sailing around the Horn. He didn’t really know anything about how a sailboat worked.
He went to the library and asked Mrs Bush if they had a book about rounding the Horn.
Mrs Carter, who had been listening, said “Dana?”
“That would be tough,” answered Mrs Bush. “But John’s a smart young man, so maybe he could.”
“John,” she continued, “we’re thinking about a book named Two Years Before the Mast, by a man called Richard Henry Dana. He was a Harvard student. He had to leave Harvard because of illness, and he became a sailor. Later, when he returned home, he wrote a book about being a sailor.”
“We thought of it because he sailed from Boston to California around the Horn, then back. It’s all real—Dana was a real person, and really did the things he describes.”
“But,” added Mrs Carter, “it’s not easy to read. It’s full of old sailing words. Every sail, every rope, and every stick of wood on those old-sailing ships had a name. Dana doesn’t explain them.”
“That sounds perfect!” John said.
Mrs Bush returned carrying a thick book. “Here it is, John. Rounding the Horn is chapters 31 and 32.”
They were right. It was a very hard book to read, even though he read only two chapters. He might have given up, but he remembered Mrs Bush’s confidence in him, so he stuck with it.
It was exactly what he needed.
They sailed south, then east. Jack rode the southeast trades with the Sea Devil on the port tack. With every mile south, the weather became colder. Also, as they traveled south, they began to run into squalls of cold drenching rain. Angie and Seph were unaffected, but for the flesh-and-blood members of the company, Jack and Ananta, the cold was hard to bear. Jack, like a Viking of old, wore layers of wool.
So did Ananta. It was a surprise to everyone, especially Ananta herself. They’d been sailing south ten days when they began to notice ice in the water. Ananta was unhappy. She shivered and suffered from the cold. Jack was not sure they would be able to continue. But then, the next day, they all noticed that Ananta was covered in fuzz. Her fur grew rapidly, and in another week she was covered in a layer of warm, oily fur.
“Did you know you could do that?” Jack asked her.
“I don’t even know how I’m doing it, Jack”
“Perhaps your body has this reaction to the cold. Because until now you lived your whole life in tropical warmth, you never knew.”
“Are there other snakes that grow fur in the cold?”
“No, only mammals have hair, and snakes are reptiles.”
“Does that mean I’m a mammal?” Ananta asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I think it just means you are unique.”
Ananta preened. Jack wasn’t quite sure how she did it, but she somehow gave off an air of self-satisfaction.
“Angie and Seph think the fur makes you look adorable,” Jack teased.
Angie pouted and Seph blew a raspberry at him, but Ananta couldn’t see this.
They had reached the roaring forties, where the wind blew strong from the northwest. Jack was thrown about by the Devil’s violent motion. The weather wasn’t kind. They often ran into squalls of cold drenching rain.
As they drove further south, rain squalls became snow squalls. These were dangerous, because pack ice began to appear. A collision with this ice might break the Sea Devil open. John could steer away from ice if he could see it, but in a snow squall nothing could be seen. Even Seph and Angie were blind.
Ananta saved them. Even in a snow squall, she could range ahead of the Sea Devil and find a path free of ice. Or make one—Ananta was big and strong enough to clear a path through drift ice.
They were now approaching Cape Horn. They saw their first iceberg. Jack had read of icebergs and had seen pictures, but he had never seen a real one. He was astonished at how beautiful it was, a huge deep blue mass, creaking and shifting as if alive.
They sailed past this iceberg on its south side, since the wind was in the northwest and Jack wanted, for safety’s sake, to keep the berg to windward. The wind slackened in the lee of the iceberg—it was that big. They slowed a bit as they passed. All four of them looked in awe at the great blue ice mountain.
“Race you around!” Seph called to Angie.
Angie set off after her. “Oh, lord. She’ll cheat, of course.”
Minutes later, they both popped up in front of Jack. “Jack, there are people on the north side,” Angie told him.
Jack continued on past the iceberg, then turned north until Angie told him they were in sight. In his telescope Jack saw the wreck of a small yacht, not much bigger than the Sea Devil. On the iceberg itself he saw three people huddled around a fire. He tacked up into the wind until he could heave to a safe distance off the iceberg.
The castaways were a family—a father, a mother, and a girl of perhaps ten years. They were signaling and calling out to him.
Leaving Angie and Seph to keep the Devil away from the berg, Jack put his canoe in the ocean. Accompanied by Ananta, he paddled to the iceberg. The wind and water around it were calm today. With Ananta’s help he made his way there safely.
“¡Gracias a Dios por tu venida!” cried the man. This was followed immediately by “¡Qué es eso!” when Ananta’s head popped out of the water
Although he spoke little Spanish, Jack had no difficulty translating “Thank God you came!” and “What is that!”
“That,” he said, “is Ananta. She is a sea serpent, and a friend.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Ananta, on her best behavior, having taken to heart Jack’s earlier words about threatening to eat people.
The shipwrecked family was astonished to see a giant sea serpent, and even more astonished to hear her speak.
They quickly established that the man, whose name was Felipe Rodriguez, spoke English well enough to get along. His wife Linda and their daughter Anita understood English but spoke only a little.
With Ananta’s help Jack ferried the Rodriguez family out to the Sea Devil, one by one. They were surprised to see the Sea Devil holding station with no sailors aboard.
Their story was quickly told. They were returning home to Buenos Aires after visiting relatives in Chile and had wrecked on the iceberg. They had been there a few days, hopelessly burning the wood of their wrecked boat to keep from freezing.
They sailed east, then, once in the Atlantic Ocean, turned north. Felipe and Linda, who were good sailors. stood watch with Jack and helped to make sail.
While the Rodriguez Family were aboard, Jack didn’t call on Angie and Seph to sail the Devil. Seph complained of boredom. Jack thought Angie was bored, too, though she didn’t complain. As always, they kept Jack informed of what lay ahead. If the Rodriguez Family noticed that Jack always seemed to know what weather to expect, they didn’t seem surprised. After all, this was a man whose friend was a sea serpent!
It was the end of August. John and his parents were packed up ready to go to their home in Lowell, Massachusetts. Dad was handing the keys over to Mr Dupont, when Mr Dupont said, “My daughters would like to meet your son.”
“Of course,” Dad said, and gestured to John.
Two girls got out of Mr Dupont’s car.
“Black Jack O’Toole, I presume?” said one of them. This one had red hair—the other was a blond.
“John, actually. But you can call me Jack, if you want,” said John. “Seph and Angie?”
“I’m Stephanie. This is my twin sister Alice,” continued the redhaired daughter. “We’re not really Seph and Angie, though.”
“How old are you, Jack? We’re eleven,” said Alice.
“Nine,” said John. “I start fourth grade this fall.”
“You write very well!” Alice said.
John thought he detected a hint of “for a fourth-grader” in this compliment, but he made an effort not to be annoyed. After all, it was a compliment, and it made him feel good, especially because he thought they wrote well, too.
He said so. “Thank you! You write well, too.”
“Have they gotten to Ireland?” Stephanie asked.
“Not yet,” John said. “They had some adventures rounding the Horn.”
“Rounding the Horn?” Alice asked.
“Going around the Southern end of South America,” Jack explained. “I think they will visit Buenos Aires on the way north. You’ll see.”
July first came around once again. John leapt up to the attic first thing on arriving, to find…
As they sailed to Buenos Aries, Anita and Ananta formed a bond. They chattered in a bizarre mixture of Spanish and English that only the two of them could easily understand. Jack learned that Ananta could laugh.
As the water grew warmer, Ananta’s hair fell away.
Before it was all gone, she said to Jack, “Jack, cut off a bit of my hair.”
Jack did this, sawing inexpertly with his pocket knife until he had a lock of a few inches of light brown hair. At Ananta’s bidding, he gave it to Anita, who received it solemnly.
“Now, Señor Rodriguez, please cut off a lock of Anita’s hair and give it to Jack—he will hold it for me.”
Rodriguez did this.
“With these locks we will always remember each other.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet!” said Seph, sarcastically.
Rodriguez pulled a glass specimen vial from his pocket and gave it to Anita, saying, “You can keep it in this.”
“You should ask for one of those, too, Jack,” said Angie. Jack did.
By the time they reached Buenos Aires, Ananta was once more as hairless as she had been when Jack and Angie and Seph first met her.
Rodriguez took the helm when they reached the Río de la Plata. Instead of sailing to the Port of Buenos Aires, he took them to a private marina south of the city. From here Jack could see an impressive mansion.
“Welcome to my home!” said Rodriguez.
“This is all yours?” Jack said.
“It belongs to my mother. We are one of the oldest families of Buenos Aires.”
They walked up to the house. There Rodriguez introduced Jack to his mother, a dignified lady in her fifties, Jack judged, and to his brother Juan.
“My fathers before me were merchants—that was always the route to wealth here in Buenos Aires. My older brother is in charge of the family business.”
“And you?” Jack asked.
“I am the wastrel younger brother. I wander the world as I please. I pretend to be a scholar and an explorer, and my mother and brother pretend to respect me.”
“For shame!” said Señora Rodriguez. “Do not believe him, Señor O’Toole. He is an explorador and a professor at the University, and we are very proud of him.”
On hearing the story of the Rodriguez Family’s rescue, his mother and brother were effusive in their gratitude. They could hardly believe what Anita told them of Ananta. They walked down to the marina to meet her in person.
Señora Rodriguez invited Jack to stay with them for as long as he liked.
“What are your plans now, Jack?” asked Felipe.
“Viajan a Ireland,” said Anita, “Me dijo Ananta.”
“Speak English, Anita,” said Felipe. “It is not polite to speak a language Mr O’Toole doesn’t understand.”
“Well, he should learn!” Anita said.
“Señor O’Toole is our guest, Anita.” Linda said.
“They’re going to Ireland. Ananta told me,” said Anita.
“You’re right, Anita,” said Jack. “I should learn Spanish.”
“I will teach you, Mr O’Toole!” said Anita. “I will sail to Ireland with you and Ananta, and I will teach you Spanish as we sail.”
“It is not proper for a young girl like you to travel alone with a man like Señor O’Toole, Anita,” said Señora Rodriguez.
“O’Toole, it’s not safe to sail alone. You should have more hands to sail the Sea Devil,” said Rodriguez.
“Ha!” said Seph. “He’s not wrong, but he’s also not right.”
“What are you saying, Rodriguez?” asked Jack.
“Suppose we, Linda, Anita, and I, sail with you to Ireland?” said Rodriguez. “We will gladly pay for our passage.”
“Well, I’d be happy to have you along,” said Jack. “But if you’re going to work as deckhands and Anita as my Spanish teacher, I would not feel right to accept payment.”
“Jack, can we go shopping?” said Angie. “We want to see the fashions of Buenos Aires.”
They did that. Rodriguez, Linda, and Anita accompanied them. If they were surprised that, along with sailing supplies, Jack purchased women’s clothing, they said nothing to him about it.
The story of Jack O’Toole, Ananta, Angie and Seph, and their friends the Rodriguez family will continue in “Up There: Voyage 5—Tír na nÓg.”
Afterword
The cover image is a phase portrait of :
A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.
Excellent chapter! 🙏
I loved how Ananta was able to naturally adapt to survive in the cold, and that was really fun how more folks are a part of the crew now! :D
Looking forward to Chapter 5! 💯