Chapter 46 - 17: Coming Ashore
October 9th, the weather was clear.
Around two in the afternoon, a southwest wind blew across the sea, the tide rose slowly, and the waves gently stirred.
A few faint white clouds floated in the sky, and the sunlight poured down, warm but not scorching.
Beside the gap in the cabin, Chen Zhou had laughed until he was tired, seeing the raft gradually drifting away from the merchant ship with the sea, quickly found a long rope, tied one end to a pillar inside the cabin, and jumped into the sea holding the other end.
This was an oversight on his part, not expecting the raft to drift towards the shore with the tide when pushed into the sea. Luckily, it wasn’t too late to remedy.
The distance hadn’t widened yet.
Chen Zhou quickly treaded water, swam to the back of the raft, tied the long rope to the wooden stake holding the anchor, and pulled the raft, halting its trend of drifting with the waves.
The thin underwear was soaked through, and after swimming around the raft once, verified the raft was neither loose nor falling apart, very solid, Chen Zhou grabbed the edge of the raft and climbed onto it.
The lower level of the raft was submerged in seawater, with planks laid on the upper level.
The planks were nailed to the framework on both ends, thanks to Chen Zhou’s carefulness, the raft surface was very flat and tightly sealed, though the edges inevitably got wet from the waves, the middle remained very dry.
In fact, when assembling the raft at the gap, Chen Zhou had considered painting a layer of waterproof paint on the raft’s surface, but due to insufficient light in the cabin, the paint dried too slowly, eager to land on the island, he eventually gave up this step.
Standing on the raft, Chen Zhou squatted down and poured out the seawater from his shoes, then took off his shirt and hung it on the sail pole to dry, looking up at the high hull beside him.
The most difficult problem had been solved, next, he had to figure out how to move the cargo onto the raft.
This wasn’t hard to handle, most of the materials were packed in boxes, burlap bags, or barrels, just tied with a rope and lowered down from the side of the ship.
But this method was not efficient enough, Chen Zhou wanted to find a more convenient way.
Looking at the gap on the side of the ship, he seemed to see a small loading dock, came up with an idea.
Gradually shortening the long rope tied to the stake, the raft approached the hull as the rope shortened, when the distance closed to about one meter, Chen Zhou secured the rope length and climbed into the cabin from the gap.
Later, he found a long and wide plank, nailed long wooden wedges onto both ends of the plank to hook the gap and the raft, to prevent sliding, then bridged the long plank from the gap to the raft.
Though the raft swayed with the seawater, the plank was very stable, becoming a bridge connecting both ends.
Using the bridge, Chen Zhou moved the inventoried and sorted, marked cargo boxes onto the raft.
Considering the need for waterproof, windproof, and rainproof storage for the materials on the island, as well as protection from wild animals, in the first batch of materials, Chen Zhou specifically added nails and hammers, dozens of planks, several large pieces of canvas, and a few empty barrels.
The planks were meant to be nailed into simple supports, covered with canvas to quickly build a rainproof little shelter to protect the materials.
The empty barrels were used as shelter doors, as long as the canvas edges were pressed down and the gap blocked, it could effectively prevent beasts from entering.
Of course, for smaller rodents like mice and rabbits, Chen Zhou had no solution.
Not just on the island, even the corners of this ship hid countless mice.
During the nights he rested in the chief officer’s room, he was often awakened by the sound of mice gnawing on the wooden boards.
These resilient rodents were impossible to completely eradicate, something even 21st century humans couldn’t achieve, he didn’t think he had the ability either.
Bringing up mice reminded Chen Zhou of another issue.
Robinson Crusoe clearly stated that besides a dog, there were two cats on the ship.
Now, he had already found the dog.
Where exactly were the two cats hiding, he still had no clue.
Reasonably speaking, he had explored most of the ship’s corners, if there were cats, he should have discovered them by now.
Haven’t heard even a meow these few days, could they have starved to death?
"If they really are dead, I’ll have to catch two wild cats from the island and tame them slowly."
The vision of the big cat from the second day’s morning challenge appeared in Chen Zhou’s mind, recalling its fiercely wild eyes, he felt taming them would be quite difficult.
However, once successfully tamed, such agile and ferocious hunters would definitely make mice fear for their lives.
While daydreaming, he systematically moved the cargo boxes onto the raft.
During the transport, Chen Zhou didn’t forget to observe the raft’s waterline to judge how much load it actually bore.
The planks, canvases, and empty barrels combined weighed about seventy to eighty kilograms, followed by a few cargo boxes that weighed over a hundred kilograms as well.
Placing them as evenly as possible along both sides of the sail, Chen Zhou found that two hundred kilograms were far from the raft’s limit, its load capacity seemed to exceed expectations, even adding fifty more kilograms of materials was no problem.
But after all, this wasn’t a stress test, there was still plenty of time, no need to overexert, safety first.
Besides, the first transport hadn’t ended yet, it was necessary to learn more before making plans, betting too much would mean losing everything if capsized.
Regarding this matter, Chen Zhou preferred to play it safe.
Just like that ad slogan: "Running fast doesn’t guarantee winning, not tripping is success."
The raft went smoothly into the sea, the transport of materials progressed rapidly.
Good news followed one after another, Chen Zhou’s mind became lively.