We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea is the seventh book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published in 1937. In this book, the Swallows are the only recurring characters. They are staying with their mother and baby sister Bridget in a new location, Pin Mill on the River Orwell, upstream from the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich, and are in Suffolk to meet their father, Navy Commander Ted Walker, who is returning overland from a posting in Hong Kong to take up a new posting at Shotley.