k. And to cap it all, coming into our
home port, beating up the narrowest part of the San Antonio Estuary, we
had a shave of inches from collision with a big ship in tow of a tug. I
have sailed the ocean in far larger craft a year at a time, in which
period occurred no such chapter of moving incident.

After all, the mishaps are almost the best part of small-boat sailing.
Looking back, they prove to be punctuations of joy. At the time they try
your mettle and your vocabulary, and may make you so pessimistic as to
believe that God has a grudge against you--but afterward, ah, afterward,
with what pleasure you remember them and with what gusto do you relate
them to your brother skippers in the fellowhood of small-boat sailing!

A narrow, winding slough; a half tide, exposing mud surfaced with
gangrenous slime; the water itself filthy and discoloured by the waste
from the vats of a near-by tannery; the marsh grass on either side
mottled with all the shades of a decaying orchid; a crazy, ramshackled,
ancient wharf; and at the end of the wharf a small, white-painted sloop.
Nothing romantic about it. No hint of adventure. A splendid pictorial
argument against the alleged joys of small-boat sailing. Possibly that
is what Cloudesley and I thought, that sombre, leaden morning as we
turned out to cook breakfast and wash decks. The latter was my stunt,
but one look at the dirty water overside and another at my fresh-painted
deck, deterred me. After breakfast, we started a game of chess. The
tide continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list. We played
on until the chess men began to fall over. The list increased, and we
went on deck. Bow-line and stern-line were drawn taut. As we looked the
boat listed still farther with an abrupt jerk. The lines were now very
taut.

"As soon as her belly touches the bottom she will stop," I said.

Cloudesley sounded with a boat-hook along the outside.

"Seven feet of water," he announced. "The bank is almost up and down.
The first thing that touches will be her mast when she turns bottom up."

An ominous, minute snapping noise came from the stern-line. Even as we
looked, we saw a strand fray and part. Then we jumped. Scarcely had we
bent another line between the stern and the wharf, when the original line
parted. As we bent another line for'ard, the original one there crackled
and parted. After that, it was an inferno of work and excitement.

We ran more and more