Explore "Two Years before the Mast" by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
From the latitude of the West Indies, until we got inside the Bermudas, where we took the westerly and southwesterly winds, which blow steadily off the coast of the United States early in the autumn, we had every variety of weather, and two or three moderate gales, or, as sailors call them, double reef topsail breezes, which came on in the usual manner, and of which one is a specimen of all.
-- A fine afternoon; all hands at work, some in the rigging, and others on deck; a stiff breeze, and ship close upon the wind, and skysails brailed down.