Flying Cloud
The True Story of America's Most Famous Clipper Ship and the Woman Who Guided Her
Chapter One
The surf broke steadily on the east side of Sandy Hook, carrying sinewy lines of foam and bits of kelp up the hard-packed beach toward the high-water mark. The breakers established a natural rhythm far older than the barrier of outstretched sand crooked four miles northwestward into the bay off the Highlands of Navesink. A moderate southerly wind whispered through the tall dry grass on the dunes and jostled the branches of the short, scrubby stands of cedar and holly along the spine of the peninsula, clearly visible from the heights above.
Seen from the summit of the Highlands at the approaches to New York Harbor, the vast reaches of Raritan Bay stretched out to the north to embrace the edge of Staten Island and Long Island's southern shore. The sails of coastal schooners, bluff-bowed merchantmen, and lean, narrow packets splashed patterns of white against the water. Oceangoing steamers and diminutive local ferries darted among the sailing vessels working down toward Sandy Hook or running free with the wind astern toward the ... read full excerpt from Flying Cloud ebook
