Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

The passing of time on a long voyage Anthony soon discovered was not announced to the inner-self by bells, chronometers, or even by days and nights. He could apprehend its duration only as a succession of varying moods superinduced by the weather and the latitude. And in these moods, he also noticed, the ship herself, as a positive personality with a certain will of her own, one to be humoured rather than baldly controlled, seemed to participate.

The mood on starting from Genoa, for instance, had been a briskly busy one gradually relaxing into routine and habit until the gale had overtaken them. Then from somewhere off the coast of Tripoli to a spot in the Atlantic southwest of Gibraltar they had been harried by the storm. It was true they had profited in distance by that harrying but the sky had been leaden and down-billowing, the ship had been plunging and wallowing; rain, spray, and green water had delayed them. No one could be comfortable for a moment. A kind of business-like melancholy and glum endurance punctuated by anxiety had gripped all alike.