TREADING WATER • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Treading water

... were broad as a frigate's; he had but to let himself down carefully and he was in the water without a splash. A dozen strokes took him clear of her, and presently he paused, up-ending and treading water, to look back at her. She stood up over her anchors like a piece of architecture, poising like a tower; the sailor in him paid tribute to the builders who had conceived her beauty. They had devised a ship: it needed Mr. Fant and his colleagues to degrade her into a sea-going prophet and give aptness ...

— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon