AUCKLAND ISLAND SEALERS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2298, 31 October 1914, Page 4

AUCKLAND ISLAND SEALERS

9 SOME ADVENTURES. The story of the adventurous trip from the islands was told to a "Southland Times" reporter by Mr. R. Waitiri, of a party of nine Auckland sealers, who arrived at Invercargill on Tuesday last. According to the member who was spokesman .for On party the Rachel Cohen arrived at the Aucklands on September 27, and was received as a messenger of gladness by > the men who wero eager to get away | from the island after a three months' | stay. It is stated that she was 22 days . out from Port Chalmers, and had been compelled to make the passage through Cook • Strait in order to ge'; a fair wind. Three or four letters and some newspapers containing the war news, so inuch in demand, were delivered, and ■file members of the party were' then taken on board. The vessel then headel for the Campbell Islands, and she was eight days out from tho Auckland Islands before land was sighted. The first land sighted was some miles south of the Otago Heads, and from AVednesday, October 22, till Mondays-tile vessel struggled along tho coast, and on the latter date, buffeted and wcather bcaten, she made the Nuggets. '-Last Sunday we got as far as Slope Point when a nor'-westerly gale struck us and blew us to sea again," said the narrator. "It took all the canvas except the main sail, and that night, there being no sail to steady her, the vessel rolled alarmingly, loppiug up water on both sides. On Monday morning we bent new sails, and once more started along the coast. We got as far as Catlins on Tuesday, when tho wind set iii from the south-west again. As food and water wero running out the skipper decided to run back to the Nuggets, and we dropped anchor there on Monday night. It was very thick, and m this account we stood well off shore. The members of the sealing party decided to go aft and ask to be put ashore. The skipper said that he would land lis, and Mr. Hatch paid our railway fares to Invercargill as none of us had any money or presentable clothes. Some of us were withouthats, others were in sea boots and without coats, and so on. . People camo to their windows and watched us curiously." Tile party brought back about 1250. sealskins, and the season appears to have been a fairly good one.