swatch n [phonetics unavailable]. Cp OED ~ sb3 local 'a passage or channel of water lying between sandbanks or between a sandbank and the shore' (1626-); EDD sb1 'a narrow channel through a shoal.'
1 An expanse of open water in an ice-field; SLATCH. Merges in some contexts with sense 2.
1909 BERNIER 7 ~ a small pool of open water in the ice. 1916 GRENFELL 165 After a long and unsuccessful day on the ice, the wind being too much on shore, and the 'swatches,' or open water, being mostly closed... 1920 GRENFELL & SPALDING 150-1 Sea-birds have also come in the 'swatches' of open water between the pans. 1924 ENGLAND 148 Why, those fellers [sealers] could jump over swatches (open water]. They could jump over a ship without touchin' narr rail. [1929] 1933 GREENLEAF (ed) 247 "Sealing Cruise of the Lone Flier": Some of us took oilclothes and one of us took a watch. / He had it for to see the time, while he was at the swatch. T 141/59-652 Blind Tickle never freezes up. There's a little eddy tide there, an' [it] leaves a swatch, see, even at the coldest winters. C 71-104 Be careful going across that harbour tonight. There's a swatch just off Murray's wharf. 1972 BROWN 178 The ice had loosened, showing dark swatches of water, swatches that would have presented no problem to fresh, able sealers, but that looked as wide as the ocean to these dying men.
2 An area of open water frequented by seals; BOBBING-HOLE; also attrib.
1887 BOND 65 I was out swatchin', as we calls it, that's shooting siles as they comes up through the swatches—them's the holes in th' ice. 1895 Dial Notes i, 381 ~ hole in the ice through which seals come up. [c1900] 1978 RLS 8, p. 23 Swatch hole: hole of water in ice [floe] where seals come up to blow. T 27-64 So he [took] chase after un with the skeets on the slippery ice, and when he made the kick at un he went into a swatch of water. He never seed un afterwards. T 84-64 Spring o' the year when they're shootin' at a seal in swatch, always at un throat-on. T 187/9-65 They bid there then around a swatch lookin' all day, walked in Sleepy Cove again, wi' their punt, launched she, an' got aboard the car. 1978 Decks Awash vii (1), p. 52 A swatch is a large or small hole of open water among the ice [floes]. This time there was one large lake, several miles long. Men were scattered here and there along the edge on both sides, waiting for a seal to show.
