about four PM
First , when they lay back to the strain , they jumped backwards and upwards on to the thwart with their feet , and then , as they once more feathered their paddles again , they came crack down on their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats , upon which they again mounted at the next stroke , and so on . When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene , but about noon it came on to blow violently from the northeast . All this while we were coasting it along about pistol-shot from the white coral beach , with the clear light green swell on our right hand , and beyond it the dark and stormy waters of the blue rolling ocean ; and the snow-white roaring surf on our left . By the time I speak of , the swell had been lashed up into breaking waves , and after shipping more salt water than I had bargained for , we were obliged , about four PM , to shove into a cove within the reef , called Naranja . Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt-water lagoons , divided from the sea by the coral beach , the crest of which is covered here and there with clumps of stunted mangroves . This beach , strangely enough , is higher than the land immediately behind it , as if it had been a dike , or natural breakwater , thrown up by the sea . Every here and there , there were gaps in this natural dike , and it was through one of these we shoved , and soon swung to our grapnel in perfect security , but in a most outlandish situation certainly .