The author spends a lot of time describing what Alicia sees is so that the reader can visualize Alicia surroundings and what she's seeing. I think it would be this because it says “Up ahead Alicia could see many boats anchored on the shallow flats.” This sort of tells me that its trying to explain every thing she sees, so they can visualize it.
A slant rhyme is a half-rhyme, where the words kind of rhyme, but not really. "Dark" and "work" sort of rhyme, but not fully. In a slant rhyme, the vowels don't rhyme.