"We're out farther than anyone has ever gotten when trying to leave this way." He's talked to the sailors. He knows. "I don't know how, but we're on our way out of the City." Maybe this is how it chose to let them leave, rather than some other way.

"There's a shoreline not far from here." He'd seen it from his perch in the crow's nest. "We'll anchor in the lee of it for tonight."