Free A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare'sThe Tempest by Hobson Woodward Page A

to return for another shift. The work was keeping the ship afloat, but it was an unsustainable solution to the crisis. In the muted light of late morning, the never-ending storm continued to hammer the ship. If the removal of water was not continued through the afternoon and evening, the inflow and the pounding seas would sink the Sea Venture and the coming night would be the last.
    Somers continued to scan the ocean, watching the waves but also looking for ships that might offer relief. He was exhausted, famished, and thirsty, but still he watched and called rudder adjustments to the helmsman below. On one of his sweeps, a movement far off caught his eye. At the crest of a swell he detected a flutter on the horizon to the west, slightly higher than the surface of the sea. The ship descended into a trough and he froze and waited for it to rise again. At the top he saw it again, and this time more clearly—above the waves, he was almost sure, he saw the tops of palm trees moving in the wind. He waited one more time as the ship dipped between swells. The consequences to morale of making a mistake would be devastating. They were far out in the Atlantic and sighting trees—while not impossible—was incredible. At the top of the next wave he saw them again and this time he was sure. Somers then let go a bellow that reached the ears of everyone on the ship, and he repeated his call, drawing out in a sustained holler the word “Land.” To the people on the Sea Venture it was a miraculous sound.
    “See the goodness and sweet introduction of better hope by our merciful God given unto us,” Strachey said. “Sir George Somers, when no man dreamed of such happiness, had discovered and cried land.” Jourdain also recalled the moment when Somers “most wishedly, happily descried land.” The first call caught the pumpers and bailers staring into the smiling faces of their mates, and the second prompted a rush up the ladders so they might see for themselves. Only a few were able to immediately confirm the sighting, but after a moment or two most were able to catch a glimpse of the palm tops. “It being better surveyed, the very trees were seen to move with the wind upon the shoreside,” Strachey said.
    John Rolfe sought out and hugged his wife. They now might live and the child Goodwife Rolfe carried might yet be born. They had begun to count the remainder of their lives in hours rather than years. Now their family might survive—they themselves might yet live to escape this sloshing, stinking ship. They had become so dulled that they hardly dared hope they would again stand on land, and now hope permeated their minds.
    Though it had been days since Somers was able to see the stars and calculate the location of the Sea Venture , he was quite certain that the ship was in the middle of the Atlantic rather than in the Caribbean or along the coast of America. That meant that the land was almost certainly Bermuda, an island (or, more precisely, an archipelago) discovered by Spaniard Juan Bermúdez in 1505 and shown on maps since 1511. The fact that the land was probably Bermuda did not inspire confidence, as it was known to be surrounded by shallows stretching far out to sea that were rightly considered the most dangerous waters of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, they had to attempt to bring the Sea Venture to shore. After a conference with Somers, Gates gave the order to bring the ship in.
     
    Despite the newfound optimism of everyone on board, the mariners knew that they were far from safe. Getting passengers and crew from a distressed ship on a stormy sea through unmapped shallows to an unknown shore was a perilous undertaking. Under normal conditions Somers would have anchored the ship offshore and awaited calmer conditions to send in the longboat, but if he did that now the Sea Venture would sink in place. The best option was to run toward the land and ground the ship. If this worked, equipment and supplies would be salvageable.