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But such lighter relief was rare. The bulk dealt with channels and shoals with weird and depressing names, with the centre-plate, the sails, and the wind, buoys and 'booms', tides and 'berths' for the night. 'Kedging off' appeared to be a frequent diversion; 'running aground' was of almost daily occurrence. It was not easy reading, and I turned the leaves rapidly.
'Let's get in as near as we can you stand by the lead, was his formula; so I made false casts, tripped up in the slack, sent rivers of water up my sleeves, and committed all the other gaucheries that beginners in the art commit, while the sand showed whiter beneath the keel, till Davies regretfully drew off and shouted: 'Ready about, centre-plate down, and I dashed down to the trappings of that diabolical contrivance, the only part of the Dulcibella's equipment that I hated fiercely to the last.
She was buried at once by the beam sea, and the jib flew to blazes; but the reefed stays'l stood, she recovered gamely, and I held on, though I knew it could only be for a few minutes, as the centre-plate was up, and she made frightful leeway towards the bank. 'I was half-blinded by scud, but suddenly I noticed what looked like a gap, behind a spit which curled out right ahead.
Once across the 'watershed' we met a strong current, but the trend of the passage was now more to the north-west, so that we could hold our course without tacking, and consequently could stem the tide. 'Give her just a foot of the centre-plate, said Davies. 'We know the way here, and she'll make less leeway; but we shall generally have to do without it always on a falling tide.
Their draught, loaded, was from six to seven feet, our own only four, without our centre-plate, but we took their mean draught as the standard of all our observations. That is, we set ourselves to ascertain when and how a vessel drawing six and a half feet could navigate the sands. A word more as to our motive.
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