While this verse does not suggest that Nephi knew his family’s ultimate destination, it provides an important characteristic of the promised land. Nephi will see himself and his people as being on an “isle of the sea” (2 Ne. 10:20). Perhaps his erroneous early impression of being on an island was influenced by this prophetic emphasis on the many waters. The phrase may also simply mean any land accessed by sea. (See the commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 19:10.)