a few minutes before noon
The course was set at an angle to the island . This would carry them past any treacherous sand-bars . They would then take another tack and resume their former course . At a few minutes before noon that day they rose far from the island . The sun , a pale yellow disk , shone through a thin haze close to the surface of the pack . And yet it was high noon . This was , perhaps , to be their last bearing taken by the light of the sun .