seven o'clock in
the evening
The boy set to work with a will ; and felt so refreshed that , by one o'clock , he was able to go below and take his share of the dinner . At present , while on their way to the fishing grounds , their meals were taken at the same time as on shore but , once at work , there were only two meals a day . Of these the first was taken when the fishing was over , the fish cleaned , picked , weighed , and packed -- the hour varying between nine and eleven . The second meal was taken before the trawl was lowered , at six or seven o'clock in the evening . After five days ' sailing , the smack arrived off the fishing ground ; but another two days were spent in finding the fleet , as the fishing grounds extend over a distance of some hundreds of miles . When they came up with it , William Gale was astonished at the vast number of boats that dotted the sea . In the Yarmouth fleet there are between four and five hundred vessels and , were it not that the most perfect order and discipline reign , the number of accidents which would occur , from so many boats fishing close to each other at night , would be terrible .