Before I left Hanalei for Honolulu it was reported by a half-white who had been left to watch the shore at Kalihi Kai that Andrews's body had come ashore and had been taken care of.
Captain Dudoit, the schooner Wainona, offered to bring me direct to Honolulu, leaving his return freight at Wainiea for another trip. I accepted the same through Mr. Bent, and we sailed for Honolulu on the evening of Tuesday, December 20, and arrived at Honolulu at eleven A.M., December 24, bringing with me the effects saved as aforementioned. I went, on landing, immediately to the United States Consul's office, where I saw him and the Minister President and told to them my story.
(Note. The reader may remember the incident I related as occurring at the time we were provisioning the gig; the discovery that the boiled rice had fermented and the hasty substitution of the dessicated potatoes. Halford was emphatic to me in the assertion that the potato was the preserver of their lives and that mixed with water it constituted their only food during the last week of their sufferings. The dessicated potato was at that time a part of the Navy ration. It was also called "evaporated," and was prepared by thoroughly drying the potato and coarsely grinding it. In appearance it resembles a very coarse meal.)
Halford has told me of several remarkable incidents which happened during the voyage of the gig and which, although not considered essential in his official statement, would be lifelong memories to him.
WILLIAM HALFORD
The only survivor of the gig's crew. (Now a retired chief gunner in the Navy.)[ToList]
Of one of these he says—and I give his own words: "We were scudding before a gale of wind under a reefed square sail. A nasty sea was running at the time. I was standing in the after hatch steering; had the reeving string of the cover that was nailed around the combings drawn tight under my armpits to keep out the sea as it washed over the boat, when I felt a shock. The boat almost capsized, but the next sea lifted her over. I looked astern and saw a great log forty or fifty feet long and four or five feet in diameter, water-logged and just awash. We had jumped clean over it. It was a case of touch and go with us."
Of another incident he says: "One night I had relieved Peter Francis at the tiller and he had crawled forward on deck. Somehow or other he got overboard; luckily we had a strong fishing-line trailing astern all the voyage, but never got as much as a bite until it caught Francis and we got him on board again. It was a bright moonlight night."