The _Planter_ coming down though
supplied us with some small provisions, such as were not procurable at
the Santee farm. Then putting to sea we beat along slowly against wind
and current.
We began now to experience, as might be expected, autumn gales of
considerable violence, the heaviest of which overtaking us at Frying-pan
Shoal, drove us back to leeward of Cape Fear for shelter. South Port and
Wilmington being then so near we determined to visit both places. Two
weeks at these ports refreshed the crew and made all hands willing for
sea again.
Sailing thence through Corn-cake Inlet we cut off Cape Fear and the
Frying-pan Shoals, being of mind to make for the inlets along the
Carolina coast and to get into the inland waters as soon as practicable.
It was our good fortune to fall in with an old and able pilot at
Corn-cake Inlet, one Capt. Bloodgood, who led the way through the
channel in his schooner, the _Packet_, a Carolina pitch and cotton
droger of forty tons register, which was manned solely by the captain
and his two sons, one twelve and the other ten years old. It was in the
crew that I became most interested, and not the schooner.
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