VII 



Sandy Shores 



THE lie-up was completed by mid-October and the fair 

 sheets drawn and forwarded. These are the detailed and 

 very minutely drawn charts prepared by hand during the 

 lie-up period and carefully stored in the Admiralty for the use 

 of future generations of surveyors. 



It is from such sheets that the cartographers in the Hydro- 

 graphic Department of the Admiralty compile Admiralty Charts. 

 The cartographer is unable to use all the soundings shown by the 

 surveyor so he must select with care those soundings which, 

 when shown on the published chart, will best indicate to the 

 navigator the trend of the sea-bed, the shallows and the deeps. 

 Nor must he include too many soundings or the mariner will be 

 unable to see the wood for the trees — the cartographer must 

 leave the sounding pattern open so that the navigator can plot his 

 courses clearly and insert his pencilled fixes. 



A full-stop is thus inserted at the end of the season's work and 

 the Hydrographic Instructions are studied so that the surveys for 

 the forthcoming season may be plamied. 



Challenger was now bound for the coast of Arabia, where the 

 winter months are more temperate than the shimmering summer 

 and thus generally more suitable for survey work. On i8th 

 October, 1938, she was heading down channel on one of those 

 grey, drizzling winter days with the visibility dowTi to a mile or 

 so ; through this misty curtain appeared from time to time a des- 

 troyer at sea on exercises, or an Atlantic liner inward bound for 

 Southampton, her passengers eagerly peering for their first sight 

 of the Isle of Wight. 



Challenger followed the familiar run to the East so well known 

 to the naval man ; to Gibraltar with its first feel of a foreign land 

 and yet still so English with its army garrison and familiar police 

 uniforms ; the sun on the water ; the smell of horses at the gharry 

 stands ; the oranges for sale in net bags made of some form of vine 



73 



