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-44-

May 6-

I spent the morning at home packing, while Bill supervised the packing at the rice shed.  There really is considerable packing to do this time, as we are moving over to Vi's house when we return from this trip.  Bernice has been quite ill, in the hospital for four days last week; George is going to Cape Palmas; while Vie has a big house next door with nobody there but himself.  We sent over all our trunks except the ones we are taking to Cape Mount.

After lunch we drove into Monrovia, did a few errands, called on Mr. Wharton, and about five thirty went down to the dock to [[strikethrough]]load [[/strikethrough]] put our truck-load of gear aboard the [[underline] Helene [[/underline]].  She is a fifty-foot fishing boat, with sails and an auxiliary engine, and we chartered her for the overnight run to Cape Mount at a cost of £7-10. We took our three best boys - Flomo, Bobo and Pay-Pay with us.  Mrs. Bodewes wanted to visit some friends in Cape Mount, so we invited her to come along.

About six-thirty we left the fish wharf, and set out under the able guidance of Captain Rosen, a young German, and his crew of eleven boys.

The other day at the Seybolds' we met a young couple called Los, who have lived for the past two years on a thirty-five foot sail boat, coming down here from Tallinn, and sailing down the West Coast and back.  They carry no crew at all, have been capsized three times (she can't swim), and altogether struck us as about the most courageous, or plumb fool-hardy youngsters we had ever met.  She is a tiny thing, looks about fourteen years old, and is as brown as an Indian.

Tonight as we left the dock a small sail boat hailed us, and to our surprise Captain Rosen stopped the Helene, threw out a towing rope, and we picked up the Low's little craft.  We had heard George say that they wanted to go to Marshall, but were afraid to tackle the bar by themselves, so we at once understood that we were to tow them out.  Crossing the bar with a boat the size of the Helene is a ticklish business, and although the sailboat is smaller than the one we were on, it has a bigger draft, and we all held our breaths while the boatmen found a way to get us all through the breakers and over the sand bar.  Looking ahead, and seeing the curling crests of the waves rushing toward you, it6 seems an impossible feat, but we got through without any bad bumps, and just a certain amount of pitching and rolling.  When we were well out to see we let loose the tow rope, and waved farewell to our gallant little Esthonians.

It was dark before we had a chance to get at our lunch box, and we found that to eat at all was going to be difficult.  There is no deck space on the Helene except a passage way of about three feet each side of the center hatch.  The cabin was so hot that it was impossible to sit in it for more than a minute; Bill, however, thought the cabin was preferable to the cluttered deck, so he stayed down there, dripping with perspiration, and Mrs. Bodewes and I arranged ourselves on top of the hatch, which was full of fish nets with cork [[strikethrough]]bobbins [[/strikethrough]] floats on them.  We had to hang on, as the boat rocked and rolled so badly,

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