about ten o'clock at night
But I think that our ugliest experience was on the 10th , when , owing to some minute miscalculation , we stranded in a dangerous spot . Mere stranding , of course , was all in the day 's work ; the constantly recurring question being when and where to court or risk it . This time we were so situated that when the rising tide came again we were on a lee shore , broadside on to a gale of wind which was sending a nasty sea -- with a three-mile drift to give it force -- down Robin 's Balje , which is one of the deeper arteries I spoke of above , and now lay dead to windward of us . The climax came about ten o'clock at night . ` We can do nothing till she floats , ' said Davies ; and I can see him now quietly smoking and splicing a chafed warp while he explained that her double skin of teak fitted her to stand anything in reason . She certainly had a terrific test that night , for the bottom was hard , unyielding sand , on which she rose and fell with convulsive vehemence . The last half-hour was for me one of almost intolerable tension .