Out of Port Aubade
We cleared the harbour mole at the turn of the tide, the whole town on the quay, and stood south with a fair wind.
The Meridian Society · Est. MDCCCLXXI
Here be the unmapped
For a hundred and fifty years we have sent small ships to the edges of the chart, and drawn what they found. There is still more edge than chart.
The voyage of the Aubade
Forty-four days to the edge
Becalmed by the rose
Nine days in a dead sea by the compass rose the old charts swear by. We fished, we argued, we mended sail.
The Isle of Lanterns
Lights along its southern shore every night, and in the mornings, no one. We charted its coast and did not land.
Through the Drowned Teeth
Rocks that show only at low water. We went through at the slack, sounding every cable, and lost an anchor.
Landfall at St. Vey
The crescent shore no chart had drawn. Here the route ends, and here the map, until someone draws the next.
Mare Incognitum Port Aubade Isle of Lanterns Crescent of St. Vey The Drowned Teeth here be the unmapped
From the expedition's sketchbook
Field sketches
Printed as engravings, as the Society's journal printed them; hover a plate for the colours as painted.
What every ship carries
The instruments
The compass
For when the stars are gone. Ours is a hundred years old and has never once agreed with the chart.
The sextant
The sun's height at noon, and so the latitude, to a mile, if the sea is kind.
The chronometer
Greenwich time at sea, and so the longitude. Wound every morning, by the same hand.
The glass
For coasts, flags and weather. Take up the loupe above and you have a small one of your own.
“The map is not the territory. But it is the only way across it.”The Society's motto, over the chart-house door