Extract of a Letter for My Diary:

'We have battered our way for days through freezing gales. The water broke across the decks and the rigging has gone to ice - colder than the day I came to visit you in Hannibal Platz when you performed one of your compositions. I remember frost on the windowpanes and how I was thinking more about you than the music and how you ran out into the courtyard without a coat, you were so cross with me…
I realise now that in all this dreadful cold at sea, the ravages of scurvy play havoc with men’s lives. The captain can barely muster a crew for the ordinary duties of the Watch and I have taken the precaution of eating more limes…I practise my violin to while away the hours but keep bumping my bowing arm against the wall of the cabin when the ship is in a violent roll. Nannerl, my dear…’
Your loving friend, Jakob