Diaries

They sailed into the wildest, most desolate places on the planet.

It was the voices of women that made me want to write The Sea Captain’s Wife. I plucked a book from a library shelf called Women at Sea in the Age of Sail. Until that moment, I had no idea that thousands of women went to sea with their captain husbands. Or that, onboard square-rigged ships, they cooked, did laundry, gave birth, administered enemas, taught children, even navigated.

On the massive ships, it was a man’s world, a place of rank, command, obedience. Women had no role, were even considered bad luck. They were bereft of their parlours, kitchens, churches, gardens. As they stood on the decks of the great ships being slowly towed from harbours, they waved goodbye to family and friends; sometimes, even, to their own children.

Most were ordinary middle-class women, not rebels or adventurers. They lived below-decks in cramped quarters, sewing, reading, and striving to keep an atmosphere as close as possible to the homes they had left. They prayed for their lives as the ships wallowed in heavy seas, men’s voices barely discernible amidst the howl and scream of wind.

In the diaries, some of their voices are constrained, as if aware that husbands or posterity might read their words. Some are vigorous, as if leavened by sea air. But inevitably, these voices are like the sound of clocks, or church bells: familiar, insistent, bulwarks against the sea’s overwhelming power, frail scrolls imposing reason in a world of terror.

I pictured a woman clutching an icy rail with mittened hands. She gazes at icebergs, even as it occurs to her that, at home, the sweet peas have begun to bloom. I longed to know what she really felt. Then Azuba was born -- the woman who would whisper her truth.

Here are a few of those voices. Imagine: pens, held over tipping tables; spilled ink; crying children; minds distracted by the wind’s salt howl.

…a monster rat..came on at my feet. I could feel his little scratching nails. On crossing my pillow he was hindered by an entanglement in my hair….

…saw a wreck…no person on board, completely swept of rigging, spars…she was waterlogged and abandoned…

…I baked a small loaf of bread…and nice and high it is of which I am very proud as I shall now have a bit of sweet soft bread…

…playing backgammon…sometimes he wins and sometimes I win but if I beat him much he upsets the board and runs up on deck…

…never have I heard a sound so awful. The sea was lashed into fury, while wave after wave dashed over us as if threatening instant destruction...

…We read of storms at sea, or shipwrecks and terrors of the deep, but Oh, how little do we realize when by our fireside at home on dry land, the horrors of being partakers of such scenes...

"I could turn back. Her thoughts, like the words being spoken ---"Write. Safe journey!"---were like sparrows: lightly perched, then a scattering."

Chapter 5, "Chalk Line"