When the booming sheets of blinding spray had
cleared and the panic-stricken sailors could again see, the _St. Peter_
was staggering stern foremost, shore ahead, like a drunken ship. Quick
as shot, Ofzyn and Steller between them heaved over the last anchor. The
flukes gripped--raked--then caught--and held.
The ship lay rocking inside a reef in the very centre of a sheltered cove
not six hundred yards from land. The beach comber had either swept her
through a gap in the reef, or hurled her clear above the reefs into
shelter.
{41} For seven hours the ship had battled against tide and
counter-current. Now, at midnight, with the air clear as day, Steller
had the small boat lowered and with another--some say Waxel, others
Pleneser, the artist, or Ofzyn, of the Arctic expedition--rowed ashore to
reconnoitre. Sometime between the evening of November 5 and the morning
of November 6, their eyes met such a view as might have been witnessed by
an Alexander Selkirk, or Robinson Crusoe. The exact landing was four or
five miles north of what is now known as Cape Khitroff, below the centre
of the east coast of Bering Island.
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