A salt-marsh frontier where the land is slowly losing to the sea. SALTREACH: the largest stilt village; walkways of tarred planks, a tar-shed on the east stilts where deals get made, a chapel that floods every spring tide. THE HARBOURMASTER: rules the channel with lamp-boats and a long memory. Counts every boat that leaves. THE DROWNED REEFS: the old coast, now under water. Only pilots who knew the old lighthouse bearings can run them at night. THE GULLMOUTH LIGHT: a lighthouse that went dark one night and wrecked the Harbourmaster's ship. Its keeper was blamed. THE SEA-GODS: nobody prays to them. Everybody leaves a fish-head on the step anyway.