I did as he said. Holding our course, I waited until the flashing buoy was fifty feet off the port beam before making the turn to a heading that pointed us directly west. Within five minutes I made out the faint red glow of another buoy. This one flashed its light every four seconds. I turned up the resolution on the GPS to determine which buoy this was just as Danny Ray announced in a whisper, “W-W-W-Wilmington River.”

A check of the screen and a glance down at the paper chart told me that he was correct; we were in the deepest part of the mouth of the Wilmington River and about to begin our ascent upstream.

Danny Ray leaned out the door of the pilothouse, turning his head from side to side as though trying to gauge the direction of the faint breeze.

Coming back inside, he said, “T-t-tide is changing.” That, too, was correct. The rising tide would assist our passage upriver.

It was a long stretch as we made our silent way through the darkness. The lights of Wilmington Island rose to starboard and then disappeared behind. Then, as we met the Intracoastal Waterway, we immediately made a hard looping turn to port that pointed us almost due south, bringing us into the waters of Skidaway River. We followed the deep waters of the Skidaway until we reached a point where Danny Ray plucked me by the sleeve.

“O-o-okay. Y-y-you follow now,” he said.

“I’ll stay back just far enough to keep you in sight,” I replied.

“Y-y-yeah,” Danny Ray responded as he turned to leave. Parker went with him.

I pulled the throttle to idle, leaving Miss Rosalie making just enough headway to give the rudder control. I heard the outboard motor of the sea skiff as it coughed to life and then Parker’s low call of, “Clear,” as he cast off the towline.

As Danny Ray pulled alongside Miss Rosalie he looked in at me and pointed his arm forward in the follow me signal. I flashed the navigation lights off and back on in response. As Danny Ray motored ahead and took his position out front as scout, Parker went and stood in the bow to serve as intermediary and interpreter. From the pilothouse I could just make out the faint white glow of the skiff’s stern light as it led us upstream by an unseen watery path.

We held the same course and speed for another half mile or so until Danny Ray slowed down and made a sharp turn to starboard into the mouth of a wide creek. We were beginning the approach to Dutch Island.