Shuffle, heave, scrape, you inch and centimetre through the area between the table and the first table-span distance from it, full of wonder, it being broadly the same as the area you have left behind yet from your new vantage so very differently angled and aspected.
You notice the structure of the ceiling, its beams and supports. If it is not the roof directly, as you suspect, then you imagine there must be some functional area above, some storage space, or at least a place fit for human clambering or occupation. You wonder what that area might contain and how to access it. There are no visible stairways or poles or ropes or folded stepladders or piles of well-situated boxes or other obvious climbing facilities. Neither is there an obvious hatch or hole or other space leading into it on the surface of the ceiling itself. Yet is this not a civilised place with its tables and possible carpet? Any passageway upwards would surely have its own landing or anteroom or other dedicated accessor area.
Shuffle, heave, scrape, you foot and metre and listen for something to bark against. You cannot hear anything more over the sounds of your exertions, not that they are loud, but they are similar enough in their texture and shape to overrule or override whatever other table motion may be happening. Should you stop in case the opportunity to increase in language passes? If you succeed in leaving then you should have no need for such a shared communication; you continue on.
You are passing through the area one-and-one-half table spans from the table and will soon be able to see more of the room above its lip. The realisation causes you to falter. You force your face to one side instead, your eyes rolled upwards in your head. You see: some containers; something with drawers in it; the end of the carpeted area, which seems to be more of a large, thin rug than an actual carpet. That makes sense, within the context you are defining, since you do not believe that boats are normally carpeted, nor barges, but you are not a mariner, as far as you can recall, and so it might be otherwise.
Shuffle, heave, scrape, you inch and centimetre, worrying about long-term damage to your fingerbones and tendons if you are to continue onwards. You start to strain more and shuffle less, bouncing a little with your middle, each bounce tiny and localised, your back spasming or giving out in cycles. Sometimes you clench in the wrong direction and accidentally move yourself forwards again, against your direction of travel and closer to the table, as though in some nightmare.
You keep your eyes fixed and straining to one side, except when you forget. They draw naturally to centre-and-forward, snapping back to the side when you catch yourself. You are approaching a tricky curve. Some other thing-with-drawers is behind you, although not directly so.