Now the inlets became much larger and went back much, much further. Immense, water-filled canyons with scores of waterfalls where small rivers dropped off cliffs so far the water sometimes turned to spray before it reached the surface. Nor were these canyons narrow slots, as so many inlets further south had been. They could be very wide and this made everything more difficult.

If the canyon was deep, it might take him two or three days to go in and follow the shoreline around and back out. Travelling all that time to cover a distance that brought him only a short way further north. Whereas if he went across the inlet at the mouth, he would not have to spend all that effort and time . . .

But again, the sea was big, his canoe small.

And the mouths of the inlets, because of their enormous size and depth, could become dangerous.

When the tide flooded in, countless amounts of seawater were pushed, jammed back and up into the inlet.

There would be a brief time when the tide was slack and the inlet was still. But that was followed by the deafening roar of the whitewater sea surging back out through the narrow mouth of the channel as the tide receded.

Leif was initially lucky because he came upon such an event while it was happening and tied to a tree ashore to watch it. He saw how powerful, how destructive it could be and knew he could never survive such an explosion of water.

So, he thought.

So he had choices. He could go back in and around all the inlets or . . . no. He had done one of the canyon inlets, all the way in and around, and it was all cliffs with no small islands for making a long stop; no shallow gravel beds to fish in. Just rock and cliffs and . . . no.

But, he reasoned, he could wait and dash across the mouth of the inlet when the tide was full and there was no current. Before the outward storm of water started. Just whip across.

And it worked.

The first time he tried it, he waited until the tide was full in, then dug deep and was across before the outward maelstrom occurred.

Slick, he thought – slick as an eel.

And again, the next inlet. And it worked again.

Which made him confident. I can do this. It is just a matter of thinking it out.

Then he came to an inlet which was twice as wide as the first two. Much more distance to cover. But still, he reasoned – the same thing. Just paddle harder. Same thing.

Only it wasn’t.

He did it almost exactly right. Waited the tide out until it was full and the current seemed to stop and he set off.

But now there were several different elements that should have warned him – removed some of the cockiness from his thinking.