Hcv: 28, 1903.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
THE SCHOONER LAY ON THE FLATS. 
every time we gybed we lost two miles. In the morn- 
ing a fog enveloped everything, and hung on all day. 
The lookout divided his time between unavailing at- 
tempts to peer through the fog, and the successful 
operation of the fog horn, which is a box-like arrange- 
ment worked by a crank that gives a long, mournful 
groan, dying away by degrees as the wind in the bel- 
lows passes out. We could see nothing and hear noth- 
ing; even the end of the jib boom was invisible at 
times. We were on the port tack heading west, and 
early Friday morning made Thatcher's Lights, on the 
lee bow. The wind came out of the N. W., and gave 
us a good run across the bay as far as Monomoy, 
where we anchored and narrowily escaped converting 
a little Nova Scotia schooner into a sloop. Captain 
Potter, after some hesitation as to the passage of the 
shoals, had determined to attempt them when the wind 
fell calm, and with the lee tide running strong we were 
compelled to anchor; but just before we let go, the 
little Bonnie Doon of St. John, New Brunswick, choose 
a location about a hundred yards under our stern as 
the best place on the coast to anchor; and as we drifted 
down broadside on with jibs aback, there seemed to be 
every prospect of a collision. The crew of the little 
schooner ran around the decks, hardly knowing where 
to go for safety, and our big bowsprit reaching to his 
topmast heads, must have seemed a mile long to them. 
We swung clear by 50ft. and drifted to leeward; we 
could do nothing on the head tide. A crack fisherman 
just ofif the ways, was attemptmg to beat through the 
slue of the rip; his white sails, glistened in the rays 
of the setting sun, and with his black hull newly 
painted and of the latest model, she looked like a yacht, 
hut for the dories on deck. She tacked again and again 
with almost the speed of a knockabout, but had to give 
it up, hauled down his jibs and anchored. I looked at 
the little Nova Scotia schooner with longing eyes; she 
had a deckload of wood, and was evidently bound to 
New York; and if the past few days were a sample 
of what we might expect in the way of progress, I 
began to think I had better be getting ashore and leav- 
ing the further navigation of the Jennie French to 
those who had unlimited time at their disposal. Here 
was almost a week of my time gone, and I did not wish 
to be away more than two or three at the outside; and 
Fernandina still 900 miles away. 
"What do you think. Captain? Can we make Fer- 
nandina in a week?" 
"A week? I've known vessels to be thirty-eight days 
going down at this time of year. You are taking some 
pretty big chances if you expect to be in Fernandina 
a week from to-day." 
"How about that little Blue-nose; do you suppose 
he would take me to New York?" 
"He may be three weeks getting there himself, and 
after we came so near smashing him all to pieces I 
doubt if he would; you had better stick to the ship; 
THj£ flLCft COMING .ABOABIX 
we will have the wind to the norrard to-morrow or I 
am a Dutchman. Dou you see those clouds in the 
nothe? That is a sure sign of an easterly. This sou'- 
wester has hung on for over a month now, and it is 
near the change of the moon; we are sure to get it 
within twenty-four hours." 
"Well, I'll risk it; but once clear of the shoals there 
will be no chance to get ashore; so let her blow." 
After an hour's delay a light westerly came off the 
land, and tlie captain determined to get under way 
and try the south channel; but the wind was too far 
to the westward for us to weather Rose and Crown, so 
about dark we anchored again, hauled down the jibs, 
settled the topsails on the caps and turned in. 
At midnight the tremble of the donkey engine heav- 
ing in chain woke me^ and I went on deck. The pre- 
liminary toilet (slipping into my sneakers) took six 
seconds. The north wind was blowing strong; the 
stars were gleaming bright, and the vessel Avas just 
paying off and leaning over under the weight of the 
fresh breeze, which was increasing every minute, and 
roughening the water as though it meant business. As 
morning dawned a little three-master, whose lights we 
had, seen to windward for some time, came down on 
our weather quarter, and steering almost our course, 
ran alongside of us, slowly drew ahead and crossed our 
bows within, as it seemed in the half light, a hundred 
yards or less, and stood off to leeward. Whoever was 
in charge of that vessel knew his business or was 
drunk, for a closer shave there could not have been, or 
THE PILOT BOAT. 
had we not luffed so as to clear him as we did, we 
would have run over him. It was too dark to make 
out his name, but he had a new foresail. 
We were now fairly on our way, and the watches 
were set and the routine of sea life begun. 
One of the chief factors toward a contented crew 
aft (forward there is none at any time) is a good cook, 
and our "doctor" was Ai in all that the term implies. 
His crisp bacon and French frieds and snowy bis- 
cuits were a treat; and after two or three hours on 
deck before breakfast, the sight of the doctor coming 
aft with his basket on his arm and the steaming coffee 
pot in one hand, was a signal for a sudden and general 
movement on the part of the hungry element aft in the 
direction of the forward cabin, where the neatly spread 
table awaited our onslaughts. The man at the wheel 
looked out for the schooner then, and we had to do 
some lively hustling to get our fill in the fifteen min- 
utes allowed by custom for stowing away the first 
BONNIE DOON OF ST. JOHN. 
table's supply; for the second mate and the engine man 
were hanging around in the waist, hungry as bears, 
waiting for us to finish; and to appetites sharpened by 
hard toil in the open, every minute spent in waiting 
within smell of the grub seems an hour. 
At I o'clock we passed the South Shoal Lightship; 
they stood by with their fiags in case we should desire 
to send a message, and I was tempted to send home 
and say that I might be gone even longer than that; 
but it costs $5, and if I didn't get back on time they 
would know I was still away, so concluded to let it 
go. We were reported by wireless, however, as having 
passed. 
The course was now south by west, and with the 
grand nothe easter, whjch promised to last for many 
days sweeping over the ocean, we began to figure on 
a quick passage. 
The last time Captain Potter came down this way 
circumstances were somewhat different, and his trip 
of three days in an open boat in the winter was reported 
far and wide in all the papers. It will bear repeating 
here. 
In December, 1902, the schooner Frank Palmer, the 
largest four-master on the coast, and the five-master 
Louise E, Crary,^ a comparatively new vessel, and one 
of the finest of her class, came in collision about eigh- 
teen miles off Thatcher's, and both sank at once. 
Captain Potter of the Crary, who was below when 
the collision seemed imminent, had just time to reach 
the deck when the crash came; both fore masts falling 
FULL AND BY. 
together held the vessels fast and locked in a death 
grapple, they sank, leaving the helpless crew of the 
Crary to swim or drown. Captain Potter jumped oven 
the quarter rail, and enveloped in a heavy ulster, swam 
a hundred j^ards to the Palmer's boat, which her crew 
had succeeded in cutting adrift; the Crary' s boat was 
stove to pieces. Then for three nights and days they 
drifted out bj' Cape Cod and into the South Channel 
vmprotected save by the clothing they stood in at the 
time; for three days and nights they froze and starved 
and died of thirst and crazed by suffering, leaped over- 
board to reach the fountains that sparkled in the dis- 
tance. Thirteen vessels they saw, but none saw them, 
though one passed so close in the night that thej^ could 
almost touch her side. The fishing schooner Ivlanhas- 
set picked up those who were left off the South Shoal 
Lightship and carried them to Boston. 
Captain Potter's feet and legs were frozen solid to his 
knees, and only his most determined resistance to the 
decision of the surgeons saved them for him. Of the 
Crary's crew of eleven, only one beside the captain was 
savea. The two ill-fated crafts, with 6,000 tons of coal 
and some ©f their crews, lie in each others embrace 
fathoms deep off Cape Cod; and as we came across the 
ba-' Captain Potter thought at one time that we were 
about over them. 
From the last shoal, over which the seas were break- 
ing white with foam, our course was laid for Diamond 
Shoal Lightship, off Hatteras. With everything on- 
her and drawing she logged ten knots that day, or ex- 
actly 120 miles, between 6 and 6. The water slowly 
changed its color from the whitish tinge, \Yhich showed 
a depth of only 100 fathoms or so to the deeper hue 
which marks the "off sounding," area from 1.500 fath- 
oms up; and every mile now that the schooner drove 
on her course was that much gained, although about' 
here we began to feel the effects of that wonderful 
"stream" which dominates the North Atlantic and its 
shores. 
The hard work and bracing air of the last few days 
had served to clear the fuddled heads of the dogs for- 
ward, and they turned out to be about the average 
crew. 
The white paint on rail and house had been cleaned 
and the broad quarter deck, generous in its 40ft. of 
beam, made a most attractive promenade with the huge 
spanker boom wide off over the lee 'quarter, rising and 
falling as she rolled. The blue sea and sky. the white- 
capped waves, the clear, warm sun and the long trail- 
ing wake astern that told without the aid of the log 
which skipped along in the foam of the speed we were 
making, fully atoned for the delays of the previous 
week, and it was grand to feel the onward sweep of the 
big craft as she lifted and seemed to slide along at a 
pace that kept the dial on the taffrfiil movmg as the 
miles were reeled off. 
THE PASSENGER STEERED. 
t 
