about noon
However , I was assured by the old thief who chartered it to me , that it would be all right ; whereas , had my innocence not been imposed on , I might , in a caiuco , or smaller canoe , have made the passage in one half the time it took me . About ten feet of the after part was thatched with palm leaves , over a framework of broad ash hoops ; which awning , called the toldo , was open both towards the steersman that guided us with a long broad-bladed paddle in the stern , and in the direction of the men forward , who , on starting , stripped themselves stark naked , and , giving a loud yell every now and then , began to pull their oars , or long paddles , after a most extraordinary fashion . 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 .