Chapter 5 Summary

Aubrey takes command of Diane and sails for Pulo Prabang. The crew is disciplined but new and not well integrated and Aubrey sets out to weld them into a seamless whole by drilling in seamanship and gunnery. In general, though, Aubrey is satisfied by the crew of 209 men—a mere twenty-six short of full complement. He finds Diane, a 32-gun French-built frigate, a competently built and lively ship. Diane approaches the locale of a craggy landmass known as Inaccessible Island—inaccessible because of sheer cliffs that rise out of the water for hundreds of feet. The wind dies just as the ship crosses the current driving toward the island and for several tense hours it is touch and go whether Diane will be driven ashore and lost; the ship's boats tow her clear, however, just as the winds picks up again...