It was a trip aboard the "Darlington", which departed Jacksonville at 8:00 AM on Saturday, timed to receive passengers discharged from ocean-going ships. It would arrive and spend Sunday in Palatka, from which it departed at 5:00 AM on Monday morning, docking at Enterprise that evening. Only by daylight did prudent captains navigate the narrow, crooked upper part of the St. Johns River. Crew members had to watch for snakes, slithering aboard out of Spanish moss in overhanging trees, and also for alligators, which the crew shot before the reptiles could tangle with the paddlewheel. Soon, an additional danger would imperil the waterway—the Civil War.