A strengthening wind blows away the fog after a couple of hours, only for blinding rain to replace it. Aboard the drifting boat, John decides that it is safer to hoist the sails and go farther out to sea rather than stay near the shore among the sandbanks and shoals of the estuary, with the risk of being wrecked in the fog.

While attempting to put out more chain, John loses the main anchor, tries to lower the spare (kedge) anchor but it fails, leaving the yacht drifting out beyond Beach End into the North Sea.

Some hours later, after hearing the anchor drag in the fog, the Walkers realise that the tide has risen, the anchor chain is now too short, and they are drifting down river. An unexpected bank of fog then drifts over the river, and reduces visibility to zero. However he does not return, leaving the Goblin without her captain. So, leaving the children aboard the anchored Goblin Jim rows ashore in his dinghy, the Imp, to catch a bus to a garage in order to fill a petrol can. However, on the second morning during a calm, the engine runs out of petrol Jim had used it for some time the night before last. The children promised to abide by these conditions. This last condition is imposed because of the imminent arrival of their father. Their mother agrees provided that there is no night sailing, that there is no going outside the harbour and that they are back the day after next. In return he invites them to sail aboard Goblin. The Walkers help Jim Brading, who was given the sailing cutter Goblin by his uncle, moor her when he misses the buoy. The navigational detail and the geography are both correct for the period when the story is set, unlike other books in the series. Ransome sailed Nancy Blackett across to Flushing by the same route as part of his research for the book. The book features a small sailing cutter, the Goblin, which is almost identical to Ransome's own boat Nancy Blackett. (In Swallows and Amazons his ship was at Malta but under orders for Hong Kong (as also stated in Missee Lee). They are staying with their Mother and baby sister Bridget in a new location, Pin Mill on the River Orwell upstream from the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich and are in Suffolk to meet their Father, Navy Commander Ted Walker who is returning overland from a posting in Hong Kong (then a British possession) to take up a new posting at Shotley. In this book, the Swallows (John, Susan, Titty and Roger Walker) are the only recurring characters. We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea is the seventh book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books.

Peter duck arthur ransome