December 28th. Ice on deck again this morning, but a day to make a man’s heart glad. First thing was arrival of big power lifeboat with the good news that at ten o’clock the night before they had rescued all the crew of the stranded schooner. The vessel herself was lumber laden and a gang went off to her to-day in hopes to get cargo out and to lighten the ship so that she might be pulled off. The day was busy for us with completing repairs on launch, getting stores on board and making ready for another bid for warmer climes. Until to-day my spears and poles have been but a miserable nuisance, but when the bight of a line caught the handle of my pump rod and twitched it right overboard, it was the eel spear for mine. Tide was running smartly and I could just reach bottom. Slowly and with great care I poked about in the mud and at last was rewarded by pulling up three feet of old rubber hose. Better luck next time and I just fell upon that mud-covered pump handle when it crossed the rail. An eel spear would sure be a handy thing in any household.
December 29th. A peach of a morning with light northerly airs, a good barometer and everybody telling us to be up and off for now was the chance. We were soon ready to start when I found centre-board jammed in the box. Hard, too. At low tide, when aground, something had wedged it hard and fast. Had to pound it out with aid of a big piece of iron piping. It was noon before we waved good-bye to our friends the Southport pilots and slipped out of the harbor down the long 80 miles of beach to Georgetown or 120 miles, nautical, to Charleston. At four o’clock, wind failing, we put on little helpmeet and jogged along our four knots right merrily. The sun set red, but with plenty of cloud. The engine began to skip about 10 o’clock and from then on until two, gave us a most remarkable exhibition of skips, jumps and shakes. At 2 a.m. it made two or three quiet little chuck-chucks and died. About this same time the barometer got in some fancy steps and dropped 4 points in two hours. Heavy cloud made the night fearfully dark, and the sea began to pick up in a long, swinging ground swell. I wished myself well back in Southport you bet. By dead reckoning Southport was some 50 miles away and Georgetown jetty about 30 only, so it had to be Georgetown. The breeze with some rain came at southwest very light and I jogged slowly along.
December 30th. Morning broke dull and sullen. Barometer still dropping and little whitey gray woolies blowing across the dark clouds. The ground swell was heaving in from sea and there was no chance for running inlets. With the light came a waspish puff of air out of southwest and on top of that one another, with such venom in it, I wasted no time on speculation, but clapped in two reefs and stood off shore. In the shake of a lamb’s tail the wickedest kind of a sea jumped up, but Henry’s stomach beat it at that. The rolling swell checked up on the shoal ground for we were in less than 3 fathoms and was met and crossed by the sea leaping with the southwester which was even then heaving me to my cockpit-rail. In half an hour it was put on life lines, douse sail and tuck in my storm reef. Canvas thrashing viciously and had to put watch tackle on leech earing before we could haul out. Laid ship to off shore, hauled up my board, lashed wheel and gave launch 10 fathoms of line. Didn’t know whether to run to sea for deeper water or take chance of ground swell not breaking and hang onto the beach. Decided to hang on for I am bound to Florida and not the Riviera. All day long we were knocked and smashed about by an indescribable jumble of crooked water. H. and I spent our time below trying to cling onto our transoms for it was not particularly safe on deck, and we crawled out only every two hours to lower sail, wear ship and stand on the other tack. There is a good bit of worry to a day like that, especially when you have a two foot hole covered only with thin canvas in the side of your boat. There would have been a mighty sight more worry if old Mascot hadn’t shown us at the very start off that she was quite able and willing to play the game. With her wheel amidships, she looked up into it grandly and never had a bucket of green water in the cockpit.
By afternoon we saw the launch was in trouble, and settling pretty fast. It was soon bail or lose her. H. stripped pretty close to the buff and I tied the bowline round him myself. Then we worked the launch up to leeward and managed to unlace a little bit of cover so when a chance came H. jumped in like a squirrel and away he went with me tending painter and life line. He had no trouble bailing out the water, but when it came to balancing himself on the little forward deck while relacing the cover, he had to face a truly sporting proposition. Kind of made my heart jump to see him perched on the bows of that little skiff when a big breaking comber would pick her up and surge her down to leeward where the next sea would put her out of sight for ages. At last he did the trick and mighty carefully I worked the launch up under our lee until with a good jump and yank on the line I landed him in the cockpit again. Cured his seasickness anyway for after warming up below he lit up his pipe as perky as you please.
During all this ringtum Scotty was playing her part well. Not once did we leave the deck tired, wet and anxious to stretch out in rubber boots and soaking oilskins on our transoms, but Scotty would curl up on our shoulder or in our lap all snuggled close with mighty comforting purr. She was a dear little companion, and in the midst of the circus we cooked her one of her own little oyster stews as a mark of our appreciation. Towards night the wind let go and as we drew in toward the beach, fishermen built big bonfires to warn us away from an inlet which they thought I might be fool enough to try and run. No more inlets for me. The sea was too heavy to anchor so we again prepared to make it watch and watch and let the boat jog off and on under her bit of canvas for we were too tired to make more sail and the night at best looked full of trouble.
December 31st. Found us slatting about in dead calm. Barometer not rising and heavy cloud. By two o’clock a.m. the sea had quieted to a long, greasy roll and I plumped over the big hook in 3 fath. and turned in for three or four hours’ snooze. Turned out at six and cooked breakfast which tasted good after some forty-eight hours of more or less cracker and cheese diet. Day broke at seven and a mighty ugly looking day it was with dark storm clouds all about and again those waspish little white ones scudding ahead of the black spots. The breeze struck in light at northeast and with it came the rain. The drops were good, big, fat ones and barometer was not sliding down so I hoped for no serious trouble, but down here the easter is only spoken about in whispers and H. and I didn’t speak about it at all. We jumped all sail on at once, up yank and fanned along. Got H. to try his launch and was rewarded by a merry little puff puff, and we were off. Found a lot of sediment in carbureter and in gasoline, evidently corrosion from tank after being filled with salt water. We kept her skipping and jumping along by continually moving throttle and needle valve. Rain and mist often shut out the shore but the light following breeze didn’t have the twang of trouble in it and by my dead reckoning I had only some 20 knots to go before reaching Georgetown jetties which stretch two miles to sea and couldn’t be missed unless it blew on and forced me off shore. I had run my time out at one o’clock and still through the haze that old sand beach stretched ever southward without a break. Worries began again, but in half an hour we sighted the lighthouse and in another half rounded the end of the north jetty and ran into quiet water.
“Way up the river Pedee