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WORDS CONCERNED

mariner: literary a sailor blizzard: a severe snow storm whale ship: ship used for

hunting whales gale: a very strong wind

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WORDS CONCERNED

ghost: the spirit of a dead person that some people think they can feel or see in a place

logbook: daily record of events during a ship’s voyage

flint: a type of smooth hard stone that makes a small flame when you hit it with steel

musty: a musty room, house, or object has an unpleasant smell, because it is old and has not had any fresh air for a long time

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SENTENCES CONCERNED

He changed to a southwest course and headed for the nearest channel, about three miles distant.

to go or travel towards a particular place, especially in a deliberate way

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Octavius was a ghost ship, probably legendary and not actual. The story goes that the vessel was found west of Greenland by the whaler Herald on October 11, 1775.

Boarded as a derelict, the boarding party found the entire crew below deck: dead, frozen, and almost perfectly preserved. The captain's body was supposedly still at the table in his cabin, pen in hand (exactly as in the Schooner Jenny legend) with the captain's log in front of him. In his cabin there was also a dead woman, a dead boy covered with a blanket and a dead sailor with a tinderbox. The boarding party took only the captain's log before leaving the vessel, because they were unwilling to search it. The last entry in the log was from 1762, which meant that the ship had been lost in the A rctic for 13 years. As the log was frozen, it slipped from the binding, leaving only the first and the last few pages in.

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The story's supposed background is that the Octavius had left Eng land for the Orient in 1761, and successfully arrived at its destination the following year. The captain gambled on a return through the treacherous (and then unconquered) Northwest Passage, with the unfortunate result of trapping the vessel in sea ice north of Alaska; thus, the Octavius had made the Northwest Passage posthumously. The ship was never seen again after its encounter with the Herald (being carried away by the streams and wind in the night after their encounter).

Current opinion is that the legend is simply a tall tale of unknown origin. See Encyclopedia Titanica, suggesting that the story is fiction.

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