noon
Of this we could only get a correct idea by observing the run of the short , bottle-green channel surges breaking in foam all round us , and the way in which a few brigs and schooners , the former under single-reefed topsails , beating up channel , lay down to it and flung the spray over their weather catheads . There were a good many craft going our way too , both steam and sail , the latter , like ourselves , making the utmost of the good fair wind by showing to it every rag that they could spread . But we overhauled and passed them , one after the other , with the utmost ease ; and when , a little later , the breeze freshened , we began to give some of the steamers the go-by as well . By noon we had brought Selsea Bill square abeam , some sixteen miles distant ; and at two o'clock in the afternoon , when I went on deck after luncheon , Saint Catharine 's was a point abaft the beam , distant eight miles . At nine o'clock that night we were abreast of the Start , when , Mrs Vansittart having determined our distance from the Point by a couple of bearings taken an hour apart , ordered the studding sails to be taken in and the royals and mizen topgallant sail to be furled . We then `` took our departure '' , and , hauling our wind on the port tack , shaped a course for Ushant , which was sighted and passed at three bells in the following morning watch , our next port of call being , as I now learned , Lisbon . During the day occupied by our run down channel all hands had an easy time of it , there being nothing much for them to do except keep the ship clean and take an occasional pull at a halyard or brace .