1 6 ALONGSHORE 



where the boats are, the beach may be swept away 

 till it is twenty feet below the wall, or be piled up 

 level with the top. In a tide it will so change. 

 Next to good catches fishermen like a good beach. 

 They know only too well how much night watch- 

 ing, how much hauling up-over, they will be saved 

 if they can leave their boats high in safety — out 

 the way o'it! 



To many visitors a man in a blue jersey 

 is a sea-encyclopaedia. But when they ask us, 

 'What time Is it high tide?' we have very 

 often to guess. What we do know is, whether 

 the tides are pinching or on the move; whether, 

 in other words, they are shortening or lengthening, 

 neap or spring. At long tides (the longest is usu- 

 ally on the third day after new or full moon) every 

 craft must be drawn up higher, and every man in 

 the boating season, at low water, must get wet and 

 strain himself to pieces, hauling and shoving boats 

 across the flat sand at the bottom of the beach, or 

 carrying ashore ladies no longer featherweight. 

 Besides which, for an equal strength of wind, the 

 waves possess an altogether greater force when 

 the tides are on the move. A sou'westerly gale 

 on the top of a long equinoctial tide keeps 

 everybody out to beach, and sweeps the shingle 



