Throughout the day, all they could do was bob helplessly on the cold gray swells and wait for a break in the weather. At around six in the evening, it seemed to come. With a strange suddenness, the winds abated, and De Long’s spirits warmed. But the seas refused to lie down; indeed, they seemed as menacing as ever. So the men were forced to spend yet another night cowering in the boat, rolling on the huge sea, their nerves tensed by the frequent smack of the spray. “Utter misery,” Collins wrote. “Hopeless except in the mercy of Almighty God, we sat jammed together.”
