Small boats dart around between the larger ships. Beyond the bustle, the shoreline of rounded rocks, pines and fir trees rise and guides the eye to the horizon. In the distance to the right the mountains on the opposite side of the fjord are visible. A small rocky island rises out of the water just beyond the shadow defining the foreground. The light seems to brighten towards the horizon and the artist has adjusted the lightness of the paint-layer on the panel accordingly. In the foreground van Eertvelt’s characteristic small figures in their bright clothes appear to be built up into flat relief with slightly thicker layers of paint. Thin brushstrokes executed in the same colour add distinct outlines and define the shapes. The glasslike green waves are crowned by thin white curly crests. The naturalism in the scene’s narrative is here balanced by a degree of stylization in the depiction of the landscape and the rendering of perspective, betraying van Eertvelt’s stylistic roots in the sixteenth-century Flemish tradition. This ‘conservative’ rendering of landscape can be perceived both in Flanders and in the North until the late 1620s.