We had barely enough coals to take us back to Nassau, and if we had remained dodging about, waiting for the light-vessel to be replaced, we should have been worse off for fuel, of which we had so little that if we had been chased on our way back we should certainly have been captured.
So we started for Nassau, keeping well in shore on the Georgia and Florida coast.

Along this coast there were many small creeks and rivers where blockade-running in small crafts, and even boats, was constantly carried on, and where the Northerners had stationed several brigs and schooners of war, who did the best they could to stop the traffic.

Many an open boat has run over from the northernmost island of the Bahamas group, a distance of fifty miles, and returned with one or two bales of cotton, by which her crew were well remunerated.
We had little to fear from sailing men-of-war, as the weather was calm and fine, so we steamed a few miles from the shore, all day passing several of them, just out of range of their guns.

One vessel tried the effect of a long shot, but we could afford to laugh at her.
The last night we spent at sea was rather nervous work.

We had reduced our coals to about three-quarters of a ton, and had to cross the Gulf Stream at the narrow part between the Florida coast and the Bahamas, a distance of twenty-eight miles, where the force of the current is four knots an hour.