![\"\"](\"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/mast-983904_1280.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Welcome to week three of the \u00a0Aubrey\/Maturin Chapter-a-Week 4 Year Read-along Odyssey<\/a>. This post gives you an opportunity to share your thoughts, quotes, and questions about chapter three of Master and Commander.<\/em><\/p>\n Quote of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n “He looked over those miles of sea to windward — perfectly clear. Not a sail, not the slightest break on the tight light of the horizon. The topgallant sail above him was suddenly golden: then two points on the larboard bow, in the mounting blaze of light, the sun thrust up its blinding rim. For a prolonged moment, Jack alone was sunlit, picked out: then the light reached the topsail, travelled down it, took in the peak of the boom mainsail and so reached the deck, flooding it from stem to stern. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurred his vision, overspilt, rolled down his cheeks: they did not use themselves up in lines upon his face but dropped, two, four six, eight, round drops slanting away through the warm golden air to leeward.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a perfect example of why I love the Aubrey\/Maturin series so much: the poetry of its language and its ability to transport me to an experience I would likely never be able to have otherwise.<\/p>\n Where are Jack and Stephen this week?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jack and Stephen are on board the Sophie, <\/em>which has left Port Mahon and is traveling eastward from Minorca:<\/p>\n “Two bells in the morning watch found the Sophie<\/em> sailing steadily eastward along the thirty-ninth parallel with the wind just abaft her beam…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Term of the Week: The Maintop<\/strong><\/p>\n In chapter three, both Jack and Stephen climb up into the maintop at different times. Jack climbs aloft and basks in the joy of his new command. Young Mowett takes Stephen up to the maintop as part of his tour of the Sophie<\/em>.<\/p>\n “The top on a traditional square rigged ship, is the platform at the upper end of each (lower) mast” (Wikipedia<\/a>). The maintop would be the top on the mainmast, or the central mast of the ship.<\/p>\n Here’s a video demonstrating what it’s like to climb up to the top of a ship:<\/p>\n