The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-08
1 "TRIP TO FLORIDA.
Notes En Route-A Change From Grippe
 and Chills to Baimy Southern Air.

welcome change and how easily ac-
 ouired. On Monday last the Clyde Line
 steamship Algonquin put to sea bound
 for Charleston and Jacksonville. Leav- ing New York in the throes of one of
 those wretched spells of come-and-go
 sorts of weather, freeze and thaw, shiv-
 CT and shake, a condition, the only reas-
 on for the existence of which would
 seem to be the searching out to the
 very last limit, victims for la grippe;
 that was on Monday at 8 o'clock, on
 Tuesday, but at the same hour shelter
 ed hooks on deck were comfortable
 lodging places, and by Wednesday
 morning, we'll down below Cape Hatter-
 as, the welcome, cheery. balmy southern
 air pervaded all things, and we sailed
 OCT summer seas; calm with only
 enough motion to keep one aware that
 they are really on the ocean, but not
 enough to disturb the most delicate de-
 partment of the interior Now it's all
 hands on deck and general inspection
 of everything, and for that matter of
 everybody Now is the toying time for
 the Algonquins genial commander, Cap
 tain Platt and the graceful and hand
 some purser, MT. Williams. The cap
 tain must needs be ready and willing
 (and indeed is so) to answer, off hand.
 the thousand and one questions, one or
 more of which he is "held up" with at
 every turn. Anything that a fertile im-
 aglnation can possibly conjure up is
 construed into an Interrogation and
 fired at the captain, and this covers a
 wide range, even within the limits of
 nautical things. Purser Williams is a
 veritable encyclopedia of useful infor-
 nation, knows where every town is down this way and how to get there, and has a cheerful way of telling it.
 Every hour of the longest day on shipboard is just sixty minutes of solid comfort. There's always something to do or to see. An interesting episode oc- cured on Wednesday forenoon as the ship came up with Frying Pan shoals light vessel, which is stationed seventy seven miles off shore from the North Carolina coast in the vicinities of Will signals were set in the rig ging which asked if the ship would take a passenger aboard; the gong sounded in the engine room, and the pulse of the great power that had ever since leaving New York cease lessly kept to it's regular and effective work, stopped, and the great ship slowed up, approaching the light yes sel cautiously. Then as she came near CT. a long dory manned with four oars and helmsman, put out from the light vessel and danced like an egg shell on 1,a taI cl,t der such conditions requires judgment and effective discipline, both on the ship and on the small boat. A long ladder is let down over the ships side with life lines either side of it. then as the small boat hears the ship, lines are thrown to it and deftly caught, then held fast or slackened as the position of the boat requires. for it must be re- membered that the ship has not lost and is still bowling along at quite lively pace, and, too, the seas surge up and fall away along the side of the ship so that one false move or the of a line, would bring the great ship and the little boat in col lision, which would mean at once the of the boat; but all was nicely iblt anu dN AiiN hIAS hlNlA1 pl llllANi clo the boat swung to the side. of the ship the passenger grabbed the life lines, se- cured a footing and clambered up the twenty-five feet over the ships side, and to the deck. The arrival turned out to be one of the officers of the light vessel who had a leave of two weeks absence ashore, after a service of two months aboard. This particular vessel Frying Pansshoal-is the furthest off shore vessel on our whole coast. and is the most exposed of any. The vessel lere is one of the only four that have steam power in the world; the other three being stationed respectfully at Sandy Hook, Nantucket, and Boston, his last named was last summer in Long Island sound marking Cornfeld ,hoal, off the Connecticut river. A rath- er peculiar fact concerning these light | vessels is, that they were constructed | iway up in the northwest at Saginaw, and had to be brought down | through the Lakes, canals, and the St. | Lawrence river around to the Atlantic | ,oast. They have proved themselves to | oe a valuable improvement, the steam | power being used in heavy storms to | lelp keep them in position, for without | his aid, frequently, the vessel would | lrag away from her moorings-the pow | r reduces the heavy strain. Life aboard | ! vessel like this must needs be monot- l ,nous to degree, days and weeks with | 10 word from shore and then, when the | cave time comes, it often happens that | he sea is too rough to make the board | ng of the passing ship possible.
 Along the middle of the afternoon of l Wednesday land is sighted, and from | hen until the ship hears the entrance | f Charleston harbor the low lying | ,each grows ever plainer into view, and | s the sun settles down we turn into the
 arbor while the last rays crimson with | -lory the crumbling walls of old Forts Ioultrie and SumDter, and gild the pires and bathe the city with bright
 ess ere he sinks behind a fringe of ofty pines that everywhere hereabouts makes the horizon. And so the good hip seeks her berth after speedy and elightful run, to lay here til noon to- borrow and then be off again for Jack onVille FI,ORIZEI,