The fleet sailed southward along the coast, keeping the land in sight. The two hundred ships of varying rates of speed and handiness could not move in the ordered lines of a modern naval armament, but streamed along in an irregular procession, closing up when they anchored for the night. From the North Foreland, with a favourable wind behind them, they put out into the open sea, and steering eastward were out of sight of land for a few hours, a more venturous voyage for these coasting craft than the crossing of the Atlantic is for us to-day. It must have been a trying experience for knight and yeoman, and they must have felt that a great peril was past when the tops of church towers and windmills showed above the horizon, and then the low shore fringed with sandhills and the green dykes came in sight. Coasting along the shore north-eastwards, the fleet reached a point to the north-west of Bruges, not far from where the watering-place of Blankenberg now stands. It had been ascertained from fishermen and coast-folk that the French fleet was still at Sluys, and it was decided to proceed no further without reconnoitring the enemy. The larger ships anchored, the smaller were beached. The fighting-men landed and camped on the shore to recover from the distresses of their voyage, during which they would have been cramped up in narrow quarters. Instead of, like a modern admiral, sending some of his lighter and swifter ships to take a look at the enemy, King Edward arranged a cavalry reconnaissance, a simpler matter for his knightly following. Some of the horses were got ashore, and a party of knights mounted and rode over the sandhills towards Sluys. They reached a point where, without being observed by the enemy, they could get a good view of the hostile fleet, and they brought back news that made the King decide to attack next day. The French fleet was commanded by two knights, the Sieur de Kiriet and the Sieur de Bahuchet. Kiriet's name suggests that he came of the Breton race that has given so many good sailors and naval officers to France, so perhaps he knew something of the sea. Associated with the two French commanders there was an experienced fighting admiral, a veteran of the wars of the Mediterranean, Barbavera, who commanded the Genoese ships. Though they had a slight superiority of numbers and more large ships than the English, Kiriet and Bahuchet were, as one might expect from their prolonged inactivity, very wanting in enterprise now that the crisis had come. They were preparing to fight on the defensive. It was in vain that the experienced commander Barbavera urged that they should weigh anchor and fight the English in the open sea, where numbers and weight would give them an advantage that would be lost in the narrow waters of the Eede estuary. They persisted in awaiting the attack.