"Reef" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... American catboat. The cat can sail into the very eye of the wind, while before the wind she is a flier, and yet she is not the best sail boat for a beginner. Let me tell you why: First, the sail is heavy and so it is hard to hoist and reef. Second, in going before the wind there is constant danger of jibing with serious results. Third, the catboat has a very bad habit of rolling when sailing before the wind, and each time the boat rolls from side to side she is liable to dip the end ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... themselves at some proper date and wind up well. This very morning the illusion completed its disappearance, and, as it were, all of a sudden, Troy hated himself. The suddenness was probably more apparent than real. A coral reef which just comes short of the ocean surface is no more to the horizon than if it had never been begun, and the mere finishing stroke is what often appears to create an event which has long been ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the reef points. All were aware of the nature of the chase in which they were embarked. The whole crew were full of ardour. They felt it as a personal grievance that the young lady to whom their employer was engaged had not only been carried ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... in the North Pacific Ocean; Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina) are manmade islands formed from coral dredging; the egg-shaped reef is 34 km in circumference; closed to the public; a former US nuclear weapons test site; site of now-closed Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS); most facilities dismantled and cleanup complete ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... paddled to the southwestern point, which Goork said he believed to be the least frequented portion of the island, as he had never seen boats put off from there. I found a shallow reef running far out into the sea and rather precipitous cliffs running almost to the surf. It was a nasty place to land, and I realized now why it was not used by the natives; but at last I managed, after a good wetting, to beach my canoe and scale ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... impact alert Jack Benson felt his heart leap into his mouth. It was as though the "Hastings" had struck, lightly, on a reef. Almost by instinct Jack threw the wheel over to port. Something was rasping, forcefully, under the hull of the submarine. As the helm went to port that something underneath, whatever it was, ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... a great amount of water, when disturbed, so as to become too large to be swallowed by some of its foes, illustrating another adaptive modification for self-defense. The wonderful colors and color patterns of the tropical fish of the reef, or of the open water forms like the mouse-fish of the Sargossa Sea, often render them more or less completely hidden from the foraging enemy. A flounder looks like a fish which was originally symmetrical, but which had come to lie flat on its side ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... bark and hope our chart, With childish glee on our voy'ge we start, The boat glides merrily o'er the wave. But ah! there's many a storm to brave, And many a dang'rous reef to clear, And rushing rapid o'er which ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... storm has kept the people away from the appointment. But the next night they make it up, and the preacher tries to make it up, too. When Mr. Thompson brought me down, six years ago, we came straight through by fording, belly-deep to the horses, across the reef, three miles long, that forms the nexus between the Nueces Bay and the Corpus Christi Bay. On either side was deep water or miring sand. Once, since that, he has had to tote his passengers out on his back. The reef has been washed out in spots. Lo! this time we go ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... jutting block, whitened by the sea-birds which here brought up their young in peace, for even the reckless boys had looked upon it as too hazardous to descend. The sea far below was just creaming among the rocks which peered above the water, and ran out in a reef causing a dangerous race; but though Joe searched the whole cliff face below him for nearly a minute he could see nothing, and at last he shouted with all his might and had a lesson in the feebleness of the human voice in that ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... give his boats? one, he said, who never was on the water in his life till I took him out for a sail a week come Tuesday. A fine use they'd be to him but to drown himself. A puff of wind, and not knowing how to take in a reef, the boat would be over in a jiffy and the nets lost. Now who would be the better for the loss of my nets? answer me that. And I'd like to be told when my boats and nets were at the bottom of the lake to whom would ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... was none the less. It was one of those hard facts, which he of all men, needed to know at the threshold of his experience with the world. Such a revelation proves disastrous to the many who go down to do business in that world. Ordinary and weak and neutral moral constitutions are wrecked on this reef set in the human sea. Like a true mariner he had written it boldly on his chart. There at such and such a point in the voyage for the golden fleece, were the rocks and the soul-devouring dragons of the way. Therefore, oh! my soul, beware. What, indeed, would this argonaut of the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... mentioned, his hero performs rather a feat in shearing three and a half pounds of washed wool in twenty-three and one-half minutes, A Mexican would have to take a reef in his big hat if he could not do better than that. His tin check is worth four and a half cents to him, and a fair hand ought to have at least fifty in his pocket at sunset, in return for as many seven-pound unwashed fleeces,—always provided he has not sacrificed them to monte during ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... the reef of Science that these little "scientists" built and are yet building is so wonderful, so portentous, so full of mysterious half-shapen promises for the mighty future of man! They do not seem to realise ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... a heap of those limy incrustations wherewith certain springs in the neighborhood cover the dead clump of rushes. It is light, full of holes and gives a faint suggestion of a coral reef. Moreover, it is covered with a short, green, velvety moss, a downy sward of infinitesimal pond weed. I count on this modest vegetation to keep the water in a reasonably wholesome state, without driving me to frequent renewals which would disturb the work of my colonies. Sanitation and quiet are ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... fore-mast a large white flag, and we cried, "It is then to Frenchmen we will owe our deliverance." We instantly recognised the brig to be the Argus; it was then about two gun-shots from us. We were terribly impatient to see her reef her sails, which at last she did, and fresh cries of joy arose from our raft. The Argus came and lay-to on our starboard, about half a pistol-shot from us. The crew, ranged upon the deck and on the shrouds, announced to us, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the flat congewoi-covered ledges of reef on the southern side of the bar lie bare and exposed to the sun. Here and there in the crystal pools among the rocks, fish have been left by the tide, and as you step over the congewoi, whose teats spurt out jets of water to the pressure of your foot, large silvery ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... craggy vertical walls of coral in very deep water. When there is a little wind, it is dangerous to come near these rocks; but luckily it was quite smooth, so we moored to their edge, while the men crawled over the reef to the land, to make; a fire and cook our dinner-the boat having no accommodation for more than heating water for my morning and evening coffee. We then rowed along the edge of the reef to the end of the island, and were glad to get a nice westerly breeze, which carried us over the strait to ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... from the fogbanks of Newfoundland, and blasts that have cooled their breath among hills of ice before they sweep across the Atlantic. Now and then a boat comes to grief even on the short voyage made for the purpose of cutting wrack from the shelves of the black-reef that lies a bit off the shore. So, on the whole, the inhabitants of Laraghmena may be considered to pay dearly for their supplies of fish and seaweed; and we at Lisconnel, though we live beyond reach of such things, and have few substitutes for ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... inverted troughs indicating lodgment by solutions from below, as, for instance, in the saddle-reef gold ores of Nova Scotia and Australia, and in certain copper ores of the Jerome camp of Arizona (p. 204.) This occurrence does not indicate whether the solutions were hot or cold, magmatic or meteoric, but in connection with other evidences has sometimes been regarded as significant ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the desert, it generally takes the form of a lovely running stream of water, which you're crazy to reach and suck up. But the shipwrecked tar always sees a vessel coming to his relief, which keeps on rushing through the water, right up over reef and everything and disappears over the island leaving him broken-hearted at the deception caused by conditions in ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to imagine the moment when her despairing mother, with death near, and with prayers and tears, had cast her adrift, hoping that the one little life most dear to that mother might be saved. The fatal reef where those parents had gone down also held for her a weird fascination, and at times the voice of the ocean seemed like the despairing cries of mortals. One picture, and it was her best, was a view of the wreck, as near as Uncle ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... rating of Able Seamen on the ship's books: these two letters are often used as an epithet for the person so rated. He must be equal to all the duties required of a seaman in a ship—not only as regards the saying to "hand, reef, and steer," but also to strop a block, splice, knot, turn in rigging, raise a mouse on the main-stay, and be an example to the ordinary seamen ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the belated one his place, and after a while of squattering about and sniffing and blowing he settled down with quieted eyes to rest. He had reached one of the stopping stages of his life, with the surety with which he would reach the last, on some desolate beach or reef of ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... under his pallor; she was visibly excited, and could not stand on the same spot for many seconds together. By this time the noise made by the bookmakers in the inclosure below was like that of ten thousand sea fowl on a reef of rock, and Glory was trying to speak above ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... thoughtless frenzy in matters where unbiased judgment is most of all necessary. It is a rock upon which we have split before; it has taken us many years to recover from the shock, and now we are in danger of altogether losing our political life upon the same reef. Unless we mend our course we inevitably shall. Men forego every consideration of public honor and private conscience for the sake of electing a party candidate. The man at the helm of the party ship has declared that he will sail due north, or south, or east, or west, whatever happens, and his crew ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... High, precipitous, perpendicular, level, and dotted with farm-houses, this singular bit of land stretches several miles out southward to sea, bordered with a rocky beach, and tapered off into the wide ocean with Duxbury Reef—a dangerous rocky reef, curving down to the southward and almost always white with foam, save when the sea is calm, and then the great lazy green waves eddy noiselessly over the half-hidden rocks, or slip like oil over the ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... how long a time it might take a thought to develop. Compass in hand, standing on a rock some hundred fathoms above the ocean, the waves of which were breaking on the reef below, I surveyed my future, filling it with books as an engineer or builder traces on vacant ground a palace or ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... white with snow when the ship came to Ungava. She had run on a reef in leaving Cartwright, her first port of call on the Labrador coast; her keel was ripped out from stem to stern, and for a month she had lain in dry dock for repairs at St. John's, Newfoundland. It was October 22nd when I said good-bye to my kind friends at the post and in ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... trust Neb than Rupert on such a duty. The latter had no taste for ships; felt no interest in them; and I have often wondered why he took a fancy to go to sea at all. With Neb it was very different. He was already an expert seaman; could hand, reef and steer, knot and splice, and was as useful as nine men in ten on board a vessel. It is true, he did not know when it became necessary to take in the last reef—had no notion of stowing a cargo so as to favour the vessel, or help her sailing; but he ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... something or ither wi' their han's. Mony's the time my stockin' 's been maist as guid's a cloaset to me, though I cudna jist gang intil't. But what maitters 't! A prayer i' the hert 's sure to fin' the ro'd oot. The hert's the last place 'at can haud ane in. A prayin' hert has nae reef (roof) till't." ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... borne on the back of a placid horse, is carried on a slow canter around the ring. He evidently impersonates a member of the horse marines, for he executes elaborate imitations of pulling ropes, reefing and furling sails. Probably the horse marines reef topsails on horseback. In the absence of opposing testimony we accept his theory, and are greatly pleased to find that the equestrian sailor finally escapes being wrecked on the lower row of benches, and so meeting a watery grave among ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... trims her to the gale I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bitter cold in the wind sweeping down from the west, and it had grown very dark. Only in the sky above the Bois a long reef of crimson light hung motionless, against which leafless ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... had completed her last voyage. She was now a battered wreck on a barrier reef. She hung thus for one heart-breaking second. Then another wave, riding triumphantly through its fellows, caught the great steamer in its tremendous grasp, carried her onward for half her length and smashed her down on the rocks. Her back was ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... "Shall I reef, or furl?" demanded Wilder, standing with the trumpet at his lips, ready to issue the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... WHAT are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the THERE she goes! meet her, meet her! didn't you KNOW she'd smell the reef if you crowded in like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any ship but that and my firm nerves she'll be in the WOODS the first you know! stop he starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . NOW then, you're all right; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... weather looking somewhat wild in the west with the red light of the sun among the clouds there, and the dark heave of the swell running into a sickly crimson under the sun and then glowing out dusky again, I got them to treble-reef the mainsail and hoist it, and then thanking them, advised them to be off. Then, putting Cromwell to the tiller, I went forward with the others and set the topsail and forestaysail (the spritsail lying furled), which would be show enough of canvas till I saw what the weather was to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... of that," replied Jack, "and I have a plan that will offset it. You see that projecting reef there?" and Jack pointed to the north. The others signified that they did. "Well," Jack continued, "back of that is as cosy a little harbor as you would care to see. I noticed it as we came by. We'll take the Essex there, and she will be hidden ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... he went rolling to leeward, for the wind began all at once to blow hard. He heard the call of the captain, and the loud trampling of the men over his head, as they hauled at the main sheet to get the boom on board that they might take in a reef in the mainsail. Diamond felt about until he had found what seemed the most comfortable place, and there he snuggled ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... had been twisted off by the whirling eddies, and were now rapidly scattering, each striving to clear the reef. Only the four vessels bound together—Estein's, Thorkel's, Liot's, Osmund's—swept in an unresisting cluster ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... signal letters. The red ensign was already fluttering from a staff at the stern, and the house flag of David Verity & Co. was at the fore, but these emblems did not satisfy Coke's fighting mettle. The Andromeda would probably crack like an eggshell the instant she touched the reef towards which she was hurrying; he determined that she would go down with colors flying if he were not put out of action by a bullet before he could reach ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... that the gift was thine. Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot Where the ankle turns i' the socket, and, with a thought, Hurl'd on a surf-vex'd reef that showed i' the sea: And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain Being scattered with the blood. Then the great throng Saddened their festival with piteous wail For one in death and one in agony. And none had courage to approach ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... I don't know what to make of it. No wind at all; the glass steady as a rock; and a heavy swell rolling up from westward. Take hold of my glass and bring it to bear on the Monk"—this was the lighthouse guarding the westernmost reef of the Off Islands. "Every now and then a ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was coming inboard regularly, and Bess knew she should be carrying less sail; but it would mean a lot of time to reef the mainsail, and if she was to get on there was small time for reefing, 'specially as the wind was hauling to the east. A beat home now, as Captain Leary warned her, 'twould be. Surely she would never be home by daylight now. And colder now it was. Ay, it was. She drew the tarpaulin over her ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... to take in a certain sail and reef another—directions which, even if they could have heard them, would have been as Greek to the occupants of the boat; but the wind carried her voice away, and she stood helpless, watching Herbert's ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail: No sail ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson
... around!" was the ominous cry a moment afterward, and all was confusion. The words were scarcely uttered, when, and before the helm was up, the ill-fated ship struck, and, after a few tremendous shocks against the sunken reef, she parted about midship. Ropes and stays were cut away—all rushed forward, as if instinctively, and had barely reached the forecastle, when the stern and quarter-deck broke asunder with a violent crash, and sunk to rise no more. Two of the seamen ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... age, the twilight of the Gods of old morality—evil is got rid of.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} For a long while Wagner's ship sailed happily along this course. There can be no doubt that along it Wagner sought his highest goal.—What happened? A misfortune. The ship dashed on to a reef; Wagner had run aground. The reef was Schopenhauer's philosophy; Wagner had stuck fast on a contrary view of the world. What had he set to music? Optimism? Wagner was ashamed. It was moreover an optimism for which ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... glad Captain Blastblow has come to his senses, and is standing out from the shore," I added. "About five miles to the eastward of the line of Keys, which form part of a circle, from Cape Florida to Pickle Reef, more than forty miles, is a series of reefs and rocks. There is a passage between the reefs and the Keys, through which vessels of light draught may pass. But I believe in having plenty of sea room when the weather ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... social call, eh? Well, that's good. I don't get much company these days. Sit down, have a reef." ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... signal to form the line as most convenient. The fleet then formed in the following order:—Goliath, Zealous, Vanguard, Minotaur, Theseus, Bellerophon, Defence, Orion, Audacious, Majestic, and Leander. The Culloden was then astern the Swiftsure, and the Alexander to leeward, tacking to clear the reef. The Admiral hove to, to pick up a boat, and also the four next ships astern of the Vanguard, which gave the Orion an opportunity, by standing on and passing them, to get up with the Zealous at about ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... ever yet had grace Ne'er to abuse his power and place? No magic of her voice or smile Suddenly raised a fairy isle, But fondness for her underwent An unregarded increment, Like that which lifts, through centuries, The coral-reef within the seas, Till, lo! the land where was the wave. Alas! 'tis everywhere ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... thunder of the surf. The waters of the pool leapt as if a giant hand had churned them. The foam from beyond the reef overspread them like snow. The whole world became full of the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... band of silver stretched away to the horizon, marking the meridian of the moon. This was broken by the line of coral reef, over which the surf curled and sparkled with a phosphoric brightness. The reef itself, running all round, seemed to gird the islet in a circle of fire. Here only were the waves in motion, as if pressed by some subaqueous and invisible power; for beyond, scarcely a breath stirred ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... unguided raft was seen in the "Slant Crossing" by the crew of an up-bound steamboat, and they wondered at the absence of all signs of life aboard it. Every now and then the drifting mass of timber touched on some sand-bar or reef, but the current always swung it round, so that it slid off and resumed its erratic voyage. At length, after floating swiftly and truly down a long straight chute, the Venture was seized by an eddy at its foot, revolved slowly several times, and ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... upon the coast of the two Americas. His fame remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the celebrated clipper had hung stranded for three days, her captain and crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as it were, keeping ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... to a very strong gale, attended with rain, so as to bring us under double-reefed top-sails. In lowering down the main top-sail to reef it, the wind tore it quite out of the foot rope, and it was split in several other parts. This sail had only been brought to the yard the day before, after having had a repair. The next morning we got another top-sail to the yard. This gale proved ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... assisted by a few able sea-men, form the crew of the ship. They stand watch, make, reef, and take in sail; do all the dirty work, tarring down, painting, scraping, and slushing. They stand watch and watch, keep at night a look-out on the cat-heads, gangways, quarters, and halliards, where they are required to "sing out" their stations every half ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the cellar is so very dark, God wants to station a candle there, and has placed you there because you can accomplish a work for Him, and for others, of priceless importance. Where is the light needed so much as on a dark landing or a sunken reef? Go on shining, and you will find some day that God will make that cellar a pedestal out of which your light shall stream over the world; for it was out of his prison cell that John illuminated the age in which his lot was cast, quite as much as from his rock-pulpit beside the Jordan. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... resumed the ex-mate, "as soon as I found myself alone in the hut. I came to the conclusion that I should be carried off by force, if I remained till next day; and so I got into the launch, carried her out of the lagoon, taking care to give the ship a berth, went through the reef, and kept turning to windward, until day-break. By that time, the island was quite out of sight, though I saw the upper sails of the ship, as soon as you got her under way. I kept the top-gallant-sails in sight, until I made the island, again; and as you went off, I ran in, and took possession of ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... waiting for his ship to locate and map a dangerous reef, Huxley went ashore, and as he playfully expressed it, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... 'We're lost, every soul and the good money! we've struck a reef, Adam, and 'tis the end and O the good money!' Hereupon I climbed 'bove deck, the vessel on her beam ends and in desperate plight and nought to be seen i' the dark save the white spume as the seas broke over us. None the less I set the crew to cutting away her masts and heaving ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... These uninhabited islands came under Australian authority in 1931; formal administration began two years later. Ashmore Reef supports a rich and diverse avian and marine habitat; in 1983, it became a National Nature Reserve. Cartier Island, a former bombing range, is now a ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Many flat fish, as for example the flounder and the skate, are exactly the colour of the gravel or sand on which they habitually rest. Among the marine flower gardens of an Eastern coral reef the fishes present every variety of gorgeous colour, while the river fish even of the tropics rarely if ever have gay or conspicuous markings. A very curious case of this kind of adaptation occurs in the sea-horses (Hippocampus) of Australia, some of which bear long foliaceous appendages resembling ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... stand one by another. It is about two or three leagues long, and at the south-west point there is another small, low, woody island, about a mile round, and about a mile from the other. Between them there runs a reef of rocks which joins them. (The biggest I ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... in the case of Osborne v. Aaron's Reef, Limited, Mr. Justice CHITTY, in the interests of the public, was justly severe on both plaintiff and defendants, declining "to give any costs in this action to such a Company." Everyone is familiar with the nautical expression ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... of the floods and thunder, To her pale dry healing blue— To the lift of the great Cape combers, And the smell of the baked Karroo. To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head— To the reef and the water-gold, To the last and the largest Empire, To the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... from death, as we thought—little knowing the fell purpose for which he had been stationed to hold out the flaring torch as a welcoming beacon to be seen afar by any vessel in distress. I glanced at the dangerous ring of coral reef round the island on which the ship had once struck, and then looked at the repulsive islander, who sat gazing at us with a savage leer. Although somewhat resembling a Papuan, as Hassan had said, we were soon destined ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... And what for? Why, just to find out what was the matter with his trial balance, that's all. When one of Labe's trial balances starts out for snug harbor and ends up on a reef with six foot of water in her hold, naturally Labe wants to get her afloat and pumped dry as quick as possible. He ain't used to it, for one thing, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... climbing as they got a chance,—these were the features by which the Rockland-born children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it blew a stiff breeze. Some time before the admiral spoke the vessels outside, he was compelled to take in all his light canvass; and when he filled, again, after giving his orders to the frigate and sloop, the topgallant sheets were let fly, a single reef was taken in the top-sails, and the lighter sails were set over them. This change in the weather, more especially as the night threatened to be clouded, if not absolutely dark, would necessarily bring about a corresponding change in the plan of sailing, reducing the intervals ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... covered by plaited matting and canvas curtains triced up all around. The back and one side of the building rested against a craggy eminence which overlooked the sea on both sides of the island, and commanded a wide sweep of reef and blue water beyond. A few clumps of cocoa-nut-trees and dwarf palms, with bare gaunt stems and tufted tops, stood out here and there along the rocky slopes, while lesser vegetation of cactus and mangrove bushes were scattered thickly over the island, cropping ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... ashore, and the captain had gone over to the cable office. The boys, after dinner, had wandered around through the crowds, avidly watching everything, from the Portuguese women selling fruit, to the phosphorescent surf rolling in across the reef ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... of bachelors"—who watches for their souls, and so untiring is his watch, as Williams was informed (206), that no unwedded spirit has ever reached the Elysium of Fiji. Sly bachelors sometimes try to dodge him by stealing around the edge of a certain reef at low tide; but he is up to their tricks, seizes them and dashes them to pieces on the large black stone, just as one shatters ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the Spratly Islands are claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam; parts of them are claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines; in 1984, Brunei established an exclusive fishing zone, which encompasses Louisa Reef in the southern Spratly Islands, but has not publicly claimed ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... screamed Captain Riggs at me. "She's gone smash flat into a bed of coral! See that green streak running away from us to seaward? That's a reef running out from the mainland and we've piled up on it, and if we don't slip off we're safe until ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... face came a set expression of determination that, even though the countenances wearing it were youthful, boded no good to the treacherous enemies of freedom whose trail they were that very moment following. Then they flashed past Robbin's Reef light and snuggled into their ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... Cocos-Keeling Islands, in the Indian Ocean, cannot be passed over. He was eager to visit a coral-reef, and this atoll, stocked and planted only by the flotsam and jetsam of the seas, the winds, and migrating birds, offers to the naturalist a most delightful study; for here, progressing almost under his eyes, are the phenomena which have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... about the same rate as that at which they had started, but the wind came off the high land, and sometimes in such strong puffs that they had to loosen the sheet. The fisherman had shown them how to shorten sail by tying down the reef points and shifting the tack and, in the afternoon, the squalls came so heavily that they thought it best to lower the sail and reef it. Towards nightfall the wind had risen so much that they made for the land, and when darkness came on threw out the little grapnel the boat carried, ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... keep quiet, and the ladies and children to dress and sit at the doors of their state-rooms, there to await the advice and action of the officers of the ship, who were perfectly cool and self-possessed. Meantime the ship was working over a reef-for a time I feared she would break in two; but, as the water gradually rose inside to a level with the sea outside, the ship swung broadside to the swell, and all her keel seemed to rest on the rock or sand. At no time did the sea ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... spent standing off and on; and at day-break the next morning, I steered for the N.W., or lee-side of the island; and as we stood round its S. or S.W. part, we saw it every where guarded by a reef of coral rock, extending, in some places, a full mile from the land, and a high surf breaking upon it. Some thought that they saw land to the southward of this island; but, as that was to the windward, it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... a hardy sailor who had been on the lakes in the roughest weather, "no boat would live now to reach the reef. Better wait till your ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... is Upper Buchanan, whose river, the St. John's, owns a bar infamous as that of Lagos for surf and sharks. The southernmost, Lower Buchanan, is defended by a long and broken wall of black reef, but the village is far from smooth water. All these 'towns' occupy holes in a curtain of the densest and tallest greenery. They are composed of groups and scatters of whitewashed houses, half of them looking like chapels and the other like toys. Each has its adjunct of brown huts, the native ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... Trunnell had the reef tackles rigged from the main yard, and the life-boat was slung clear of the lee rail. Then, watching a chance, she was let go with Hans and Johnson in her to keep her clear and dropped back to the mizzen channels, where the volunteers were ready to ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... series of sketches of island life in the South Seas, not inferior to those contained in 'By Reef and Palm.'"—Speaker. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the eminent geologist and authority on volcanology, declares there is danger that all the West Indian reef islands will collapse and sink into the sea from the effects of the volcanic disturbances now in progress. More than that, he says, the Nicaraguan canal route is in danger because it is in ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... cold morning, the moon had gone down, and Venus was just rising in the east; on every side was the blue rolling water. They had left Nantucket miles behind. Sampson, who was on duty, seeing the boy looking out, as if he had come to the conclusion that the island had been submerged, shook out a reef in the line which he was making fast, that he might catch the boy's ear, and pointing to a dim light far down in the distant horizon, he remarked, "Look well, it's old Sankoty; I'm thinking you'll have seen different days when you make ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... and down on the waves like a feather, and thrust her bows under so far, that John had to waste some of his enthusiasm upon the baling kettle. Paul had not hoisted the jib, for the mainsail was all the old craft could stagger under, and her youthful skipper expected soon to be obliged to reef. The Flyaway was at the eastward of the island, driving over and through the waves like a phantom. The spray was dashing over her bows, and her jib was wet several feet above the boltrope. She was working to windward till she could clear the island, when she would have the wind free ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... I had waited in vain; but I now resolved to wait no longer. I had made a bold determination on that very morning; which was, that I should take the dinghy and visit the reef myself. This, then, was the grand excursion on which I was bound, when I removed the little boat from her fastenings, and shot out upon the bosom of the bright ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... to keep up the right pressure of steam and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... surface, which captain Vobonne mentions having seen in 1732, to the north of Porto Santo, really exist, we may suppose that this innumerable quantity of medusas had been thence detached; for we were but 28 leagues from the reef. We found, beside the Medusa aurita of Baster, and the Medusa pelagica of Bosc with eight tentacula (Pelagia denticulata, Peron), a third species which resembles the Medusa hysocella, and which Vandelli found ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... chucks himself right into it, and puts his last ounce of strength on a rope. That is the fellow who will make a good officer, and who, if needs be, can set an example to the men when they have to go aloft to reef a sail in a stiff gale. So, as I understand, Mr. Prendergast, he is going to leave the sea for a bit. It seems a ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... minute or so returned, clambering back through the skylight holding two blue lights in his hand. He struck the end of one and illuminated the whole place with the ghastly glare. The Vanity, but a few minutes before a trim, smart ship, lay there on the reef a total wreck. The bright light showed her broken bulwarks with the seas making clean sweeps through them, the decks one mass of wreckage in hopeless confusion, cordage and rigging, splintered yards, and shattered deck-house—all alike had suffered a sea change. The foremast and the ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... ship away, for Montauk, sir," exclaimed the mate—"keep her away for Montauk, and let that chap follow us if he dare! There's a reef or two, inside, that I'll engage to lead him on, should he choose to try the game, and that will cure him of his taste for chasing ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... which they apply to all sorts of obstacles consisting of hard and rocky matter which comes in their way in the course of their navigation; they call such obstacles "reefs," and they have long been in the habit of calling the particular kind of reef, which is formed by the accumulation of the skeletons of dead corals, by the name of "coral reefs," therefore, those parts of the world in which these accumulations occur have been termed by them "coral reef ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... long narrow Alaska Peninsula near by, the Eskimo choose their village location for an accumulation of driftwood, for proximity to their food supply, and a landing-place for their kayaks and bidarkas. Hence they prefer a point of land or gravel spit extending out into the sea, or a sand reef separating a salt-water lagoon from the open sea. The Aleutian Islanders regard only accessibility to the shell-fish on the beach and their pelagic hunting and fishing; and this consideration has influenced the Eskimo tribes of the wide Kuskokwin estuary to such an extent, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the sky grew paler by degrees and the stars faded out. We were opposite the buoy now, dark amongst the dark waves, and we turned at right angles and made for the shore. The tide was high and we glided over the inner reef easily. Soon we could see the eaves of the cottage dimly, a cock crowed sleepily, the white pole pointed out some rough steps ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... throttled me as I dragged it after me through the water; whilst the loose folds of my shirt, being washed out to seawards by the tide, kept getting entangled with my arm. I grew weak and faint but still swam my best, and at last I providentially reached a reef of rocks which projected from the opposite shore, and to which I clung until I had somewhat regained ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... in his breast. Weariness fell from him, and he leaped overside, not feeling the chill of the shallows. With a grunt, he heaved the boat up on the narrow strand and knotted the painter to a fang-like jut of reef. ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... with the pressure of the wind on it. But Frank Racer had considerable skill in handling boats, and with his brother at the helm, to ease off when he gave the word, he managed to cast off the throat and peak lines, lower the gaff and sail, and then take a double reef in ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... sailed twelve hours before we fell in with a gale, which lasted several days, and we kept under close-reef-topsails and storm-staysails. The gale lasting a week, raised a mountainous swell, but it was very long and regular. On the seventh day the wind abated, but the swell continued, and at evening there was very little wind, when a circumstance occurred which had nearly cost me my life, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... lady's hand it will snugly lie, 'Tis as thin as a red rose-leaf, Yet it holds the seagull's sorrowing cry, And the roar of the tide-lashed reef. ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... aleak; the sailor works at the pumps till, faint and weary, is heard from below, six feet of water in the hold; the boats are got ready, but, before they are into them, the vessel is dashed against a reef of rocks; some, in despair, throw themselves into the sea; others get on the rocks without any clothes or provisions, and linger a few days, perhaps weeks or months, living on shell fish, or perhaps taken up by some ship; others get on pieces of the wreck, and perhaps be cast on some foreign ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... of the pirates stuck his head out of the cabin door, jabbered some unintelligible words and pointed to the sails. The boy nodded, for he understood they wanted to attend to the rigging. So the crew trooped forth, rather fearfully, and began to reef the sails and put the ship into ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... after sunrise, and being unable to reef the sail single handed he managed partially to brail it up. All day the craft flew along with the wind on the quarter, making six or seven miles an hour; and he felt that by morning he would be well beyond pursuit. On the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... rapidly too, towards the shore. With an anxious, piercing gaze, I looked round to the southward to see if I could discover any signs of the smack, half dreading to find her driven in among the rocks, yet still praying and hoping that she might be riding safely at anchor behind some sheltering reef, or within some little harbour on the coast. Not a sign of her could I discover. I looked seaward. Two or three sails were seen, rising and falling in the offing, but too far off to allow me to hope that she could be one of them. On drove the mast; its course was altered, and it was evidently ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Commandant Desbarres, and Isidore ate, drank, as if he had never eaten or drunk before. He helped himself repeatedly to all the dishes, becoming aware for the first time of the pleasure of having one's belly full of good things which tickle the palate in the first place. He had let out a reef in his belt and, without speaking, and although he was a little uneasy at a wine stain on his white waistcoat, he ceased eating in order to take up his glass and hold it to his mouth as long as possible, to enjoy the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... ME about Henry," he protested. "I've known Henry twenty-five years. If Henry got his deserts," he exclaimed hotly, "he wouldn't be a consul on this coral reef; he'd be a minister in Europe. Look at me! We're the same age. We started together. When Lincoln sent him to Morocco as consul, he signed my commission as a midshipman. Now I'm an admiral. Henry has twice my brains and he's been a consul-general, ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... the sight of the fire upon the island. It served, however, to show people's tempers and spirits; and we were able to give a tolerable guess how our men would behave, in case there really were any enemies upon the island. The flaws came heavy off the shore, and we were forced to reef our topsails when we opened the middle bay, where we expected to have found our enemy; but saw all clear, & no ships, nor in the other bay next the north-east end. These two bays are all that ships ride in, which recruit on this island; but the middle bay is by much ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... if I had an axe. An axe or a paddle. Harry, I'm not getting back down in one piece. Somehow, I know it. Don't you let them do it to anyone else unless there are manual controls from the ejection onwards. Don't do it. This isn't just nosing into the Slot, over the reef between the town and the island and letting go then, and beginning to sweat. This is much more, Harry. This is bloody frightening. Are the three minutes up yet? My stomach is crawling at the thought of you pushing that ...
— What Need of Man? • Harold Calin
... of the braver spirits. "It may hold. We don't want to drown on the reef. Let's get ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the past! But here now they all stood gathering dust, and I thought: so will the unborn philosophers of the next century fold me up and put me away beside the other mouldy ones—curious but no longer useful. My book will be but an empty shell on the reef of human history. Of such cruelty are the makers ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... as a boy, I shipped before the mast—the wrong mast—and how the old tub bumped a reef and went down with all hands—and feet—except mine. You remember me telling how I grabbed aholt of a large wooden box and floated on to a dry spot. It knocked the wind out of my stummick considerable, but I hung on kind of unconscious till the tide went out. When I come to, I looked round to ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... to the bottom, save him whose strap had broken. This one struck out, not to the shore, but down the stream, striving to keep up with his comrades. A couple of hundred feet below, the rapid dashed over a toothed-reef of rocks, and here, a minute later, they appeared. The cart, still loaded, showed first, smashing a wheel and turning over and over into the next plunge. The men followed in a miserable tangle. They were beaten against the submerged rocks and swept on, all but one. Frona, in a canoe ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... And what wilt thou reply? Draw tight the rein Lest that fiery soul of thine Whirl thee out of the listed plain, Past the olives, and o'er the line. Dire and grievous the charge he brings. See thou answer him, noble heart, Not with passionate bickerings. Shape thy course with a sailor's art, Reef the canvas, shorten the sails, Shift them edgewise to shun the gales. When the breezes are soft and low, Then, well under control, you'll go Quick and quicker to strike the foe. O first of all the Hellenic bards high ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... he, "I must be goin' in. There is a story in the evenin' paper that I am readin'. Men are divin' in the seas for a treasure, and pirates are watchin' them from behind a reef. And there ain't a woman on land or water or in the air. Good-evenin'." And he trundled his pushcart down the alley and back to the musty court where ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... sailed to New York, and in his pocket was a letter which was not to be read till Bermuda was out of sight. When the coral reef was passed, when the fairy blue of the island waters had changed to the dark swell of the Atlantic, he slipped the bolt in the door of his cabin and took out ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to the circumstance that the rocks all around it lay so near the surface of the sea as to prevent the possibility of agitating the element very seriously, and to the fact that she was near the lee side of the reef. Had the breakers been of the magnitude of those which are seen where the deep rolling billows of the ocean first meet the weather side of shoals or rocks, a craft of that size, and so loaded, could not possibly have passed the first line of white water without filling. As it was, however, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... gave chase in all haste and coming up with her before long, threw grapnels on board and made fast to her. Then they made all sail for their own island and were but a little distant from it, when the wind veered and rent their sails and cast them on to a reef on our coast. Thereupon we sallied forth on them, and looking on them as booty driven to us by fate, slew the men and made prize of the ships, in which we found the treasures and rarities in question and forty damsels, amongst whom was ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... anxious to deify him: and thence he started again to find his way across the Pacific to the Cape of Good Hope. After much intricate and dangerous navigation among the Spice Islands-in the course of which Drake made a treaty with the Sultan of Ternate, and the Pelican was all but lost on a reef-she rounded the Cape in January, sailing into Plymouth Sound on September 26th, 1580, a little less than three years from the day when she began her voyage. Drake was the first commander who conducted a circumnavigation from start to finish. His precursors ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... south, round Pongara Point, keeping close into the land. About forty feet from shore there is a good free channel for vessels with a light draught which if you do not take, you have to make a big sweep seaward to avoid a reef. Between four and five miles below Pongara, we pass Point Gombi, which is fitted with a lighthouse, a lively and conspicuous structure by day as well as night. It is perched on a knoll, close to the extremity of the long arm of low, sandy ground, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the clews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging. He answered, "What would be the good of that?" I told him we had been asking a wind from GOD, that it was coming immediately, and we were so near the reef by this time that there was not a minute to lose. With a look of incredulity and contempt, he said with an oath that he would rather see a wind than hear of it! But while he was speaking I watched his eye, and followed it ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... of Vera Cruz and were passing Anton Lizardo, the place to which we were bound. But a reef was between us and the anchorage where the fleet was quietly lying. The Captain of the schooner said he could cross the reef. Taking his place in the rigging from where he could better observe the breakers and the currents, the schooner tacked here and there, rapidly and repeatedly, ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... and slack each reef an' tack, Gae her sail, boys, while it may sit; She has roar'd through a heavier sea afore, An' she'll roar through a heavier yet. When landsmen sleep, or wake an' creep, In the tempest's angry moan, We dash through the drift, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... at noon on the forefront of a rising gale, with the sun peeping furtively through cracks in a gathering cloudbank. As the wind freshened, the manes of the white horses curled higher and whiter. Thompson tied in his last reef in the lee of a point midway of the Pass. Once clear of it the marching surges lifted the yawl and bore her racing forward, and when the crest passed she would drop into a green hollow like a bird to its nest, to lift and race and sink deep ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to be within half a degree of the truth. We found Point Venus, the northern extremity of the island, and the eastern point of the bay, to lie in the longitude of 149 deg.13', this being the mean result of a great number of observations made upon the spot. The island is surrounded by a reef of coral rock, which forms several excellent bays and harbours, some of which have been particularly described, where there is room and depth of water far any number of the largest ships. Port Royal bay, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr |
