It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored,
inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both drooping together in the breezeless air.
With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm whale, sweep
inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.
When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water
inshore, sure enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy
Close
inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks--English, Scotch, French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats; and beyond were ships of large burden, a multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and along the blue coast across the Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which also extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon.
Later still, the resistance offered at the Nile was all, and more than all, that could be demanded from seamen, who, unless blind or without understanding, must have seen their doom sealed from the moment that the Goliath, bearing up under the bows of the Guerrier, took up an
inshore berth.
Well--if there are any regular land breezes at all on this coast one must get close
inshore to find them, mustn't one?
When the tide is rising, and advancing on land, it is not prudent to bring the vessels too close
inshore, for, if the wind is fresh, the prows are buried in the sand; and the sand of that coast is spongy; it receives easily, but does not yield so well.
We were already rather close in; but I ordered the U-33's prow turned
inshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tasting it to assure ourselves that we didn't get outside the fresh-water current.
Toward midnight the wind and sea abated, so that shortly after dawn I determined to make
inshore in an attempt to effect a landing, for we were sadly in need of fresh water and food.
The light blur of smoke, from an invisible steamer, faded on the great clearness of the horizon like the mist of a breath on a mirror; and,
inshore, the white sails of a coaster, with the appearance of disentangling themselves slowly from under the branches, floated clear of the foliage of the trees.
From the point the shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet
inshore.
applying tracking technology to vessels fishing
inshore waters to help deter gear vandalism, introducing spatial pilots within gear conflict hotspots, testing technology to improve understanding of fishing vessels operations, establishing a working group with industry to look at good practice and possible legislative changes to the marking and visibility of static gear within 12 miles, considering legislative options for Marine Scotland to take a more direct role in gear conflict.
