MY FIRST CRUISE 



211 



NEARING THE ANCHORAGE 



round the Battery and under Brooklyn 

 Bridge. I remembered how big the 

 waves looked sometimes from the deck 

 of the ferryboat, and, as I have re- 

 marked previously, I am not a good 

 sailor. But the bay was as calm as the 

 proverbial millpond that morning, and 

 we headed up the Sound at a good ten- 

 mile-an-hour clip, past Blackwell's, and 

 had Whitestone abeam before I realized 

 that we were fairly off. It was here 

 that I got into my first 

 trouble. Those poached 

 eggs did it, and after 

 that we always had our 

 eggs boiled. 



The first night on 

 board — we had run in- 

 to a small harbor — was 

 a new sensation. The 

 gentle motion of the 

 boat and the soothing 

 lap, lap of the wavelets 

 against the sides acted 

 like a sleeping draught. 

 We got sleepy early, 

 and I had just dozed 

 off when Billy wok^ 

 me with a shout that he 

 had "forgotten to hang 

 out his lights. It was 

 fairly dark that night, 



and Billy was only just in time, for 

 as he swung out his stern light, a 

 hoarse voice broke out alarmingly 

 near, telling us we were all kinds of 



d fools and asking if we were 



hankering to be run down. We gen- 

 erally hung out our lights before the 

 sun went down after that. 



We fooled along up the Sound, 

 occasionally laying to and dropping 

 a line for a chance fish, but once 

 inshore, we got into quite a mess. 

 We had dropped our anchor about 

 the middle of the day, but when we 

 started the engine up we forgot about 

 the anchor, and, of course, the boat 

 ran upon it and fouled the propeller. 

 Somehow or other the rope got 

 twisted round the propeller and our 

 united efforts at pulling on it pretty 

 nearly succeeded in breaking our 

 backs. We jumped off into the tender 

 to see what was up, and it took us quite 

 an hour to cut the rope off, for we 

 could not untwist it. Billy, who had 

 hold of the end holding the anchor, 

 must needs let go as soon as the rope 

 was cut and had to dive in after it, for 

 we needed that anchor badly. We had 

 two with us, but from various little oc- 

 currences on the way I was not quite 

 so trustful of Billy as before, and I 



THE LILLIAN M., CABIN CRUISER 



