“As an adult reader, this story fills me with a sense of nostalgia, a deep yearning for things lost to much of the busy modern world – time for weekend family lunches, for afternoon sleeps and cloud gazing, for precious hours of simple activity with a parent and dunking biscuits in tea.

A child will, however, delight in the easy comradeship and unspoken understanding of this father and daughter, the passage from darkness to light, the dreamy worlds of cloud and sea, in watching the magic of crabs turning from blue to red when cooked – illustrated in the striking endpapers.

Samantha Tidy speaks to us in the voice of the young tousle haired daughter. It is clear, lilting, simple text that perfectly evokes the atmosphere of anticipation and wonder for the natural world and for the shared experience of boating and all it entails.”