Beyond, there was a shimmer of swift-moving water, with a silver mist on the surface, though from a height of a few feet it would have been easy to distinguish the bold contours of Fernando Noronha itself.
Marcel plied his paddle vigorously, and Iris thought they were heading against the current, since there was a constant swirl of white-tipped waves on both sides of the curved plank, and her dress soon became soaked.

But Hozier knew that one man could not drive a craft that had no artificial buoyancy in the teeth of a four-knot tidal stream.
Marcel was edging across the channel, and making good use of the very force that threatened to sweep him away.

Indeed, in less than five minutes, a definite clearing yet darkening of the atmospheric light showed that land was near.

The hiss of the ripple subsided, the tide ceased its chant, and a dark mass sprang into uncanny distinctness right ahead.
The girl's first sensation on nearing the island was an unpleasant one.
She was conscious of a slight but somewhat nauseating odor, quite unlike anything within her ken previously.

It suffused the air, and grew more pronounced as the catamaran crept noiselessly into a tiny bay.
Hozier sympathized with her distress; knowing that acquaintance with an evil often helps to minimize its effect, he bent close to her ear and whispered the words: "Mangrove swamp." Iris had read of mangroves.