“”Waking at dawn, I went out and down to Duval Street for coffee at an all-night stand, then to the southernmost point in the U.S. I sat on a bollard trying to work out the following question – one O’Maurigan had posed on the flight down, quoting an exchange between Hart Crane and one of his critics. Do the compass, the quadrant, and the sextant contrive tides, or do they merely record them? You can see why.”

(James McCourt, Delancey’s Way, p. 157.)