Close hauled on the starboard tack we were driving hard into a Winter nor'wester. Andrews was anxious to weather Cape Cod before sunset and drove the schooner unmercifully. The spray froze wherever it landed and when I came on deck my eye caught three points of pale yellow flying off the weather bow. I watched until they disappeared, moving with ease into a zero gale which kept us down to a ten-minute trick at the wheel. When a swift moving cloud crossed the sun their normal white color returned. They are associated in my memory with cold, wind and desolation. I never saw one under benign skies.
Arctic ocean, rarely south in Winter to New England coast.