The Republican journal., 1912-09-05
From Nassau to New York in
a Cat-BOat.
FROM A LETTER HOME.
BY ALFRED JOHNSON.


give an idea of what our life aboard
was like:
On yacht Myrtle off Cape Fear, April
II, 1912, 9 a. m.
have Just come down to my watch
below after holding the wheel for four
hours; i. e., since just before dawn OF
day this morning. The half dozen
breakfast dishes are cleared away, the
useless remnants of the bacon and-eggs
and coffee-grounds thrown overheard,
the clean red checkered table-cloth
spread on the cabin table, and l am
seated at it in flood Of sunlight. A
cool breeze is blowing through the open
portfolios into my face and ''feels good
at my throat, barred by the open-necked
sailors blouse. Charlie has bottle of
beer and Pm likely to have an hour or
more to myself alone with you, in which
I'll try to give you some idea OF what
our trip up the coast is like.
Myrtle, as you know, is the cat-boat
Mr.. Bacon uses to get back and forth
to his island, 5 miles from Nassau in.
She needed repairs so we are taking her
north to be fixed up. She might have
been sent in sixth of the time and at
a tenth of the expense on the deck OF
one of his own steamers, but he is "a
good sport" and regular sea dog, and
though he couldn't spare the time to go
in her himself, he wanted her to fight
her own way up. And as he sits IN his
big office on the Battery, N. Y, he reads
her reported, with as much interest as
of any of his real ventures.
NV companion and have divided the
routine work up between us in such a
her hn fnnk1nC
dish washing and general drudgery, while
l in turn do all the navigating, chart
work, laying of course, etc. My most
laborious task is to keep her pumped
out-this usually takes rae about an
hour, after the dishes are washed and
while Charlie is enjoying his pipe at the
wheel.
With crew of only two there cannot
be any loafers or dead-heads, as one or
the other must sleep much of the time
and cannot be called without a good
reason, if anything like harmony is to
prevail. And when the wind blows and
the seas are heavy, as they have been
on this last stretch of about 300 miles IN
the open ocean, we are both of US, kept
jumping constantly at either sheet.
ballard, reef-point or tackle, wheel,
pump, or engine trouble.
We are running now N. N. E., miles
outside the Cape Fear lightship, which
we can just distinguish on the horizon.
This carries Us we'll outside of Frying
pan Shoals and IS miles from the nearest
land on Cape Fear. The wind is fair
and fresh and we are under both single
reefed sail and engine, making about
our best time, 6 knots per hour, over
rather high but long easy following sea,
that rolls in under our bluff bows along
the thin planks of the bilges, and then
out under her square stern with a swish
and gurgling mountain-brook-like noise,
that sounds not unpleasantly to me down
here in the cabin, not inches directly
under my feet.
The curtains, draperies, spare clothes,
etc, hung on hooks along the cabin
sides, swing with the rolling of the
boat, and at times trousers leg sus-
pended in air rushes across the paper
upon which am writing and the pots
and pans and spider keep up constant
jingling as they travel rythmically back
and forth, hung On their respective nails
in the little galley forward.
Myrtle is so broad and fat and junky,
like all cat-boats, however, that she is
very steady for so small boat; and
beer mug full of wood violets that
Charlie picked outside the Magnolia
Gardens, near Charleston, hasn't slid off
the table, yet. We are now bound for
Beaufort, N. c.. and all around the
horizon not speck of land is in sight.
l am hoping constantly that the bar at
the entrance of the harbor will be quiet
enough for US to pass over it. If the sea
does not 90 down good bit before we
arrive there late tonight or early to-
morrow morning it will be impossible
and there will be no alternative but to
put to sea again and heave too until it
does subside, unless we want to hang on
for 10 miles farther and run chance OF
finding the narrow entrance that leads
into the blight, south of Cape Lockout.
This we actually did do at Il o'clock
that night, feeling our way IN with the
lead line and bei4-g governed by the roar
of the waves on the shores, keeping the
eastern one better aboard and passing,
in the meanwhile, the dismal wreck of
three-master who had failed in attempt
ing the same thing only shortly before.l
When the waves are breaking white all
the way across Beaufort bar, although
there is Is feet of water in the channel,
no boat can pass in and live. She would
be hurled end over, only to be cast at last
Oh VIC UedCll oloSS INV
These were the exact conditions that we
found when we arrived there at o'clock
p. M, on April 18th; and after studying
the situation for ten minutes decided, as
the pilot told us later wisely, to keep on
to Cape Lookout.)
might write you of storms, for we
have had two during the last two weeks;
or of sudden thunder squalls, with such
darkness that we could scarcely see each
other the length of the boat and were
forced to be governed largely by the
feeling and the size of the ropes as they
passed through our hands while we were
lowering the sail, getting lashings over
the swaying gaf, tying up and making
things snug generally; and once, even
with the engine going full speed ahead,
we could make no progress whatever
into the eye of the wind and flying blind
ing sheets Of water, but were driven
stern first before it, content simply not
to get her caught sideways in the trough
of the sea before everything was made
snug and the sail secure enough so that
at least it would not below out and pay
her lead off from the wind.
But l will not dwell longer here on
these rougher experiences, as l have re-
ferred to them or described them in de-
tail in the log-book; and, in fact, of all
the voyage, l judge that our passage
through the channels, rivers, sounds,
Lat e L L. u