1894
Feb. 18
Dead reckoning at noon: lat. 36" 59' long. 71" 08 : run 224 miles
Second day at sea. Pass the lat. of Hatteras & cross the Gulf Stream.
  Cloudy with strong S.W. wind and heavy
showers of rain at intervals. There was an
ugly sea running when I came on deck at
8 a.m. and it increased slowly but steadily
until the waves were nearly as large as any
that I have ever seen. Our ship behaved splendidly
but more than half the passengers were forced
to take to their rooms. The decks were positively
dangerous at times.
  Through the afternoon the sea had a peculiarly
wild and angry look. The wind picked
the crests off the waves and the white spray
drifted like snow. The water became
distinctly bluer as we entered the Gulf Stream at
about noon. The wake of the ship was almost
exactly the color of water in which blueing has
been placed for washing purposes, and the crests
of the breaking waves had a similar hue. We
passed out of the Gulf Stream at about 10 P.M.
after which the sea became much less rough.
  About a dozen Gulls were following the ship
when I came out this morning but they all
left us before ten o'clock and during the
afternoon I saw no birds of any kind. I think
those Gulls were Kittiwakes but I did not put
the glass on them.
[margin]Gulls[/margin]
  Two schools of small porpoises were the only
other living creatures. They kept along with us
for a little way and one school raced
past and played about our bows.
[margin]Porpoises[/margin]