the fast weakening waves. We trod delicately among and around them,
sounding and observing; heaving to where space permitted, and
sometimes using the dinghy. I began to see where the risks lay in
this sort of navigation. Wherever the ocean swell penetrated, or the
wind blew straight down a long deep channel, we had to be very
cautious and leave good margins. 'That's the sort of place you
mustn't ground on,' Davies used to say.

In the end we traversed the Steil Sand again, but by a different
swatchway, and anchored, after an arduous day, in a notch on its
eastern limit, just clear of the swell that rolled in from the
turbulent estuary of the Elbe. The night was fair, and when the tide
receded we lay perfectly still, the fresh wind only sending a lip-lip
of ripples against our sides.



13 The Meaning of our Work

NOTHING happened during the next ten days to disturb us at our work.
During every hour of daylight and many of darkness, sailing or
anchored, aground or afloat, in rain and shine, wind and calm, we
studied the bed of the estuaries, and practised ourselves in
threading the network of channels; holding no communication with the
land and rarely approaching it. It was a life of toil, exposure, and
peril; a struggle against odds, too; for wild autumnal weather was
the rule, with the wind backing and veering between the south-west
and north-west, and only for two placid days blowing gently from the
east, the safe quarter for this region. Its force and direction
determined each fresh choice of ground. If it was high and northerly