Since leaving our beach promenade in the Faeroes, we’re had alternating fair weather and fog, along with gales and more gales mostly from easterlies. Fog and gales . . . or as the Dutch crewmen say, mist en sterk wind.
It’s a secret confided only to my personal diary that our heading west southwest is my choice, my defiance of orders from the VOC to attempt only the Northeast Passage over Nova Zembla to Cathay, but this adverse weather plays in my favor.
Some day after we arrive at and register the VOC letters with Cathay, we shall return to Amsterdam and besides the Directors van Os and Poppe, I will face my friends Yope—Jodocus Hondius—and Emanuel van Meteren, and they may demand explanation for my traveling to the west rather than the north and east. But here I have my excuses: we made for the Northeast Passage, we tried, we struggled, but the weather overwhelmed us. To save VOC property . . . this vessel Half Moon, we had no option to heave-to, lie-a-trie, or even lie-a-hull and allow the easterlies to have their way with us, almost, nearly throwing us onto numerous icebergs and the shoals of many fata morgans. .
Driven by the gales to Cathay . . . auspicates well.