The U.K. is a small boat with a big hole in it, but it's tied to a big ship, that being Europe. Even though it seems like it should sink, it just won't go down.

We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.

We dug ourselves such a big hole with those turnovers.

The boat from India was a crowded place; all long sea voyages on boats feel crowded. When you are stuck at sea for weeks there is nowhere to escape from people.

[One party to the conversation recalled:] Someone fired out, 'What about Bob, what's he going to do? ... Well, he can ship his mail-order bride back on the boat.

She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job like scrubbing a deck could be satisfying, if it was done in a seamanlike way. She was very taken with this notion, and later on she folded the blankets on her bunk in a seamanlike way, and put her possessions in the closet in a seamanlike way, and used 'stow' instead of 'tidy' for the process of doing so. After two days at sea, Lyra decided that this was the life for her.