130 A DAY WITH THE MACKEREL. 



low water inside the entrance, must there remain like a book 

 in a glazed case, often looked at but very little used. I there- 

 fore owned a boat of such a size as could be beached at any 

 time of tide, and hauled up by aid of a block or a small cap- 

 stan at the top of the beach. 



It chanced, however, that the day in question was one of 

 those red-letter days, so few and far between, the weather being 

 sufficiently settled to moor off or keep my little craft at anchor 

 from the previous day. Yes, it was indeed, a dies dierum, for 

 none of that carrying down of ballast was to be done, the 

 ordinary accompaniment of boating from an open beach, with 

 possibly the addition of a wetting to the waist in launching 

 from the open shore, and the remaining afterwards wet during 

 the trip, a most undesirable state of things, and certainly pre- 

 judicial to health in the long run if often repeated, notwithstand- 

 ing many assertions I have heard to the contrary. 



My boat was not a large one, for the reasons above stated, 

 being scarce 15 feet over all, with a beam of 5 feet 8 inches, 

 elm plank, and clench-built, with little rise of floor, and a keel 

 not exceeding 5 inches deep, being as much as I could venture 

 to put on her without crippling the garboard strakes in beach- 

 ingthat is to say, the two first planks fitted and rabbeted into 

 the keel. As our destination was about two miles to windward, 

 and it is especially desirable in a beach-boat to take advantage 

 of a favourable tide, we got under weigh an hour and a half 

 after high water, so as to carry the remainder of the flood-tide 

 with us for another hour and a half, by which time, if the wind 

 held, we should fetch well into the bay to windward, and be 

 ready for the fish at the breaking away of the ebb three hours 

 after high water, until which time the eastern or flood-stream 

 continues to run, notwithstanding the perpendicular fall of the 

 water to half-tide level. We made a long board into the offing 

 to keep the strength of the stream, and on going about found 

 the western horn of the bay well under our lee, and that with 

 the remainder of the flood under foot we should fetch well to 

 windward of our fishing-ground. 



As we were, therefore, quite at ease with regard to reaching 

 the desired locality, I ordered the old pensioner by whom I was 



