50 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
comforts only tend to heighten the enjoyment of the 
pleasant times, which are all the more appreciated 
after a bad spell. 
The vessels used for sea-otter hunting were fore- 
and-aft schooners, ranging in size from about 40 to 
100 tons. The best-equipped ones carried three 
hunting-boats and a spare or stern boat. A plentiful 
supply of anchors and chain was carried, as seldom 
a season passed without the loss of two or three 
anchors and a quantity of chain cable, owing to the 
anchors becoming inextricably jammed in between 
the heavy boulders of the rocky places in which at 
times the vessels were compelled to anchor. In 
trying to break them out the chain sometimes parted. 
Where, however, it was too strong, a length of it had 
to be unshackled and slipped. We never anchored 
without buoying our anchors, so that if, in a heavy 
gale off the land, over which the wind would sweep 
with hurricane force at times, our cables parted, as was 
often the case, and we had to go to sea and “ lay to,” 
we could run in again when the blow was over, and 
recover our anchors and chains ; or if a gale suddenly 
sprang up, and blew right on shore, giving us no 
time to heave up our anchors, we had to slip our 
cables (buoying the ends of the chains as well in that 
case), and beat out to sea for safety, or run to some 
shelter until we could return and pick up our gear. 
This kind of thing on a dark night, with the shore 
close to, and reefs and rocks in the vicinity, with 
strong tides running, which often prevented the 
vessel from being canted in a direction so as to head 
her out on the right tack for clearing dangers, was 
ticklish work, and not one of the pleasures of otter¬ 
hunting. 
