On arriving at the beach we found the river would have to rise 3 feet or more before it could possible break over into the sea, and that 3 foot rise meant the loss of our intire [entire] outfit. If it only was light enough we could undertake to cut the river through, but in a blinding storm and dead of night, with the darkness so intense that it was impossible to see scarcely one’s hand before him, it looked like an almost useless undertaking, still it was a chance and we decided to try it. We knew that in ordinary weather that the river hugged the north bank and if we was [were] lucky enough to strike the main channel it would drain the river from the over flowed bottom where it was now fast covering.

So placing the men to the best advantage we began a task of digging a channel about 3 feet deep and 60 feet long, while it was easy digging, it was hard work to keep up the channel open as the sand would cave into our ditch almost fast as we would dig it out, but as we began to near the middle of the bar and success look certain we worked like [hounds?] one behind the another until all of us was wet with perspiration as well as soaked with rain. Two hours and fifteen minutes had now elasped [sic] and we had only a few feet more to go when we found we were too high with our channel by at least 18 inches.

This was on account of the inky blackness of the night which made it very uncertain to calculate with any accuracy. Our work had to be done over, or abandoned, and the latter we felt had cost us to dearly to let go now. So we turned back and began again, but our spirits soon caught the excitement of the night and we renewed our efforts and by so doing in ¾ of an hour we were at the lakes edge, ready to turn it into the channel.

The rain had ceased some, but the wind and clouds were scuddy [scudding] past at a lively rate and we were anxious to get our task over before it began raining again, so the Captain yelled, “all out boys and look well to your footing, for where the river gets under headway the sand will melt away into the flood with great rapidity and if one of you should be caught by the caving sand bank, its good night for you.”

At this he hope it was through at first, and barely would run, but with a little coaxing here and there, he finally got it through and gradually the river began to eat her way into the sand, minutes passed and the river grew, small blocks of sand and would slip and fall into the channel at first, to be quickly eaten up by the water, then larger chunks, would slip in until probably 20 minutes had passed we were wondering why our channel did not grow wider, but it seems the river was boring out the ditch at the bottom and at the same time undermining the banks, for suddenly with a great roar and splash the bank broke nearly under our feet and almost caught two of us in it’s downward plunge. It was possibly 5 minutes until the channel was 50 feet wide and roaring by with a roar that could be heard above the noise of the surf which was only 50 yards away.


Big Sur…NEXT