Floated again after supper and we dropped one anchor up stream and one down for the night which came dark and with fog.
January 7th. Turned out to find pouring rain and thick, thick fog. Leisurely good breakfast and with rain letting up after we slipped away only to run ashore a quarter of a mile. By quick work we dragged her into deeper water and settled down to a loaf until fog should lift. Soon after this a motor tug came by with a scow alongside. Wonderful how these natives can find their way in these crooked slews. Just then the tug took a jump in the air and the nigger pilot near shot out the window and there they were for the rest of this day. We had most delicious fried oysters for luncheon. Must get to a city pretty soon for yesterday, when lacing on sail cover, I laced my starboard whisker to the mast. After lunch we started again and went about 200 yds. and fetched up some more. One thing is very satisfactory round here; to go aground is neither strange, uncommon nor a subject of ridicule. “Everybody’s doing it.” This morning we allowed it was Charleston or bust to-day. I guess the busts win.
Yet one more guess, for tide came and we went another 100 yds. Then tide came some more and we were off and away. Through a drawbridge and so out into Charleston Harbor where we passed close to Fort Sumpter and then over to the City where we anchored in open roadstead with considerable tide off the fine clubhouse of the Carolina Yacht Club at 5 p.m., just four weeks to the day from Beaufort, and we had allowed four days at longest. We poseyed right up and went ashore where a member of the club most courteously gave us a stranger’s card and then to P. O. for lots of good news from home and so to a little restaurant for a good bite to eat. Mighty hot and sticky ashore with steam rising everywhere. Most enervating. Our legs going all wibbly, wobbly so. Mighty glad to get on board again where it is snug, peaceful and quiet. Scotty much to the bad again this evening with a real, genuine fit. Don’t know what to do for her and am very glad she has lately taken a fancy to sleep with H.
Turned in only to be turned out by Scotty who refused to have her fit comfortably in the lazaret, and proposed having it and actually did have it in the cabin. H. hid under his blanket, but I was brave, faced the danger and got Scotty’s initials scratched all over my bare feet. Shipwreck is nothing to a wet cockpit, bare feet, dark night and a fitting cat. Soused her with cold water and bundled her away under cockpit for the night. At four o’clock in the morning H. woke to find her cuddled to sleep most contentedly on his blanket, so that danger is for the moment past.
January 8th. Turned out to a most muggy, foggy enervating day with thermometer at 75 degrees. Decided we better keep moving her southward, and if we ever get any time have it at the far end and on the return trip when the country should be at its best. So it was on shore with anchor for a new stock and to get a kedge anchor and things too numerous to mention but which sadly depleted my finances. To cap the climax, word comes from home that wifey has decided to keep what money H. had for Christmas and I could advance it to him. Don’t that beat all? Such a bully dinner of steak and fixings. Such a glorious hot bath and after that a long session with tonsorial artist. Then tumbled everything on board and by gum if up didn’t go northwest storm warnings. No place to take a twister, this Charleston. So up anchor and into the clubhouse wharf where we tied snugly. On shore for another good feed. Charleston, nominally prohibition, is really more wide open than any town I ever saw. The blind tigers are running with wide open eyes at every corner and the signs of open gambling everywhere. Commend me always to a good, gambling bar for good cooking and so we hit a mahogany palace having an electric roulette wheel for a sign. Right we were and a delicious steak we had.
January 9th. Comes cloudy, mean and with a chilling wind that smacks of easting. The swash at the open dock had us rolling and gave me good warning to be up and away. It was early up town to a quick breakfast and visit to P. O. then on board, clap in two reefs, twist her round and off up the Ashley River to the tune the old cat died on. We soon found mouth of Wappoo Creek which was our inland way and up it we hustled under canvas. All day we kept the sail on her, winding and twisting through the marsh under a cold, cloudy sky. We finally were glad to drop over hook in a broad reach just below Martin’s Pt., perhaps 30 miles from Charleston. We knicked her once but twisted her into deep water, and jumped her up all standing on a middle ground just before anchoring for the night, but were soon off again. The night shut in dark and cloudy with a cutting wind out of northeast. Glass is again up to 30-2/10 and I suspicion trouble. Am all snug here and Scotty is all right again, the fire drawing well, so let her blow.
January 10th to 15th. Am not going to write daily log of this time for it would be too tedious reading, but it was by no means tedious living. We became part and parcel of the swamp and marsh. We were of it, in it, and passed through it like a muskrat or mink, like a snipe or plover. The tide; its set, speed and turning. The wind; its strength and direction. These were what counted and on them we either halted or went on. The ripple of the tide at every bend, the line of foam bubbles on every reach was a matter of constant interest and study. Such days are not for either rich or poor, for those ignorant or wise, but for those only who can cast themselves bodily into nature and be absorbed by it. I don’t wonder big launch owners and houseboat owners always send their boats south under charge of the crew. There could be nothing more dreary than just a-setting still and being taken through these twisting rivers that lead for miles and miles through the never ending rice marshes. We saw some ducks and shore birds, but got shots at very few and missed those ingloriously. One morning during a thick fog, H. tried Helen Keller at a cormorant which down here they call a nigger’s goose. The bird was on the wing, yet once it sounded as if the bullet had found meat but the bird didn’t drop. Two or three hundred yards farther on we came across him stone dead with the lead through his heart. The fog was a nuisance and brought us to anchor at the mouth of the river leading into St. Helena’s Sound which we wished to cross on our way to Hunting Is. H. went ashore to try and pick up a mess of something to eat, but at 5 p.m. yelled out of the fog that his boat was high and dry and he would like me to send him his supper on a tray. Foolish little boy. I got him on board again about 7 and mighty glad he was to crawl into the warm cabin and eat a good hearty supper for he had been nearly bogged, was wet through and plastered with mud. A bit scared, too, and I don’t believe will try this country again alone. He got seven shore birds, but cooked and ate them on shore himself. Greedy cuss. He brought me a present in a match box and when I opened it, out hopped a chameleon lizard right into my lap. What with Scotty trying to catch it and I trying not to, there was a very busy cup of tea. We caught him next day. Have named him Bill from Alice in Wonderland and added him to ship’s company.