It is a long leg and a short one out of the harbour, and you get a heavy puff now and again from over the high land that brings your lee-rail level with the water, and makes you luff in a hurry. Three or four tacks bring you to the headlands of the bay, and as you stand out from under the weather-shore you begin to feel the real wind and sea. There is plenty of both, and you have to do all you know with tiller and sheet to negotiate the big seas that roll up on the weather-bow and to keep the lee-gunwale out of the water at the same time. It is just a little more than you can manage. A couple of steep combers that you have to luff up to knock all the way out of the boat and make her stagger; the next sea throws her head off the wind, while at the same time a heavy puff forces her lee-side under water. You put the helm down, but she has had no time to gather much way, and is slow coming to; you are forced to let go the sheet, but she has taken a good drop on board before she comes up, and there are more big seas coming. 'It won't do,' you say to your mate; 'we must have another reef in.' So you drop your peak, and wear, and run back under the shelter of the point, and take your third reef down. Then you stand out and try again; and it is wonderful what a difference the reduction of canvas has made. She stands well up, and rides beautifully over the big seas, hardly shipping a cupful of water as she rears up and lets them pass under her. It is an art, if a simple one, steering a boat to windward in a big sea. You have to put her almost straight at the worst seas, and yet you must never let her lose way, or she will fall off broadside to the sea, and perhaps be too 'sick' to come to again in time to prevent a vicious wave from breaking on board or capsizing her. And there are few things more exhilarating. Every big sea successfully surmounted is a triumph in itself, and the winning of ground to windward foot by foot against wind and sea feels like an arduous but steadily victorious struggle against a sturdy foe. And now you find you can weather the island, and, choosing a 'smooth,' go about for the last time. If the seas breaking on it looked fine from the yacht nearly three miles off, they look awe-inspiring now close under your lee with their roar thundering in your ears. Now you are no longer riding head first over the seas, but running free at a slashing pace, sheet in hand, watching the sea narrowly over your shoulder, ready to luff instantly if some specially dangerous monster should make it necessary.