Posted by Peter H on October 15, 2007 at 17:53:44 from 86.147.155.70 user Peter_H.
This is a query about the exact meaning if the phrase 'blue water'. It occurs in Chapter I of 'Peter Duck'. The OED confirms what I already thought - ie that it means the open sea. But when Captain Flint says that PD is 'thinking of coming down Channel with us', PD queries that, and says 'It was blue water I was thinking of'. Presumably then, the Channel is not 'blue water'. How 'open' does the sea have to be before it's regarded as 'blue water'? Do you have to be sailing on an ocean? And BTW, why 'blue'? I have often seen the sea just off the coast, eg of North Wales, on a sunny day and it is an attractive deep blue, but this is obviously not 'blue water'.
(Internet searches haven't really helped.)