Norman turned away from the lad and looked out to the sea with his own eyes.  The boats were still there, but they were a little harder to see. 

Those large deep sea boats, a schooner far out on the horizon, closer in they had the tiny smacks, - wait a moment, what was that? Instinctively, Norman reached for his pocket to fetch his telescope, but then remembered. Instead, he squinted.  Someone dressed for swimming down there was paddling around just offshore, on what looked like a plank.  How unusual. The squinting hurt his eyes, so he had to look away to refocus, but he soon looked back fixated. He fumbled the pages of his notebook to find the most recent entries, and scribbled:

Mystery person on plank, paddling/swimming? off beach.