PALM BAY, on its western side, is an excellent anchorage in the easterly monsoon; it is four miles and a half wide, and nearly three deep.  The shore is rocky for a mile off, and the south point has a rocky shoal projecting to the West-North-West for a mile and a quarter.

DARCH’S ISLAND is separated from Croker’s Island by a navigable strait two miles wide; near the reef at the north-east end we had six fathoms, but in mid-channel the depth was as much as eleven fathoms.  A considerable reef projects off the east end for more than a mile.  The island is about two miles and three-quarters long, and is thickly wooded; its north point is in latitude 11 degrees 7 minutes 30 seconds.

RAFFLES BAY forms a good port during any season; it is seven miles deep, and from two to three broad:  beyond High Point the depth is not more than three fathoms and a half.  The anchorage is however quite safe.

The bay to the eastward of Point Smith, which has a reef extending from it for nearly a mile, has a shoal opening at its bottom of very little importance.  At the north-east end of the bay, separated from the point by a channel a mile wide, and more than five fathoms deep, is a small sandy island, with a reef extending for a mile off its north end.

PORT ESSINGTON, the outer heads of which, Vashon Head and Point Smith, are seven miles apart, is an extensive port, thirteen miles and a quarter deep, and from five to three wide; independent of its Inner Harbour, which, with a navigable entrance of a mile wide, is five miles deep and four wide.  The port is not only capacious, but has very few shoals or dangers in it.

On the western side, off Island Point, there are some rocks, and also a reef projects for a mile off the bluff point that forms the east head of Knocker’s Bay.  The western side of the entrance to Inner Harbour, is also rocky and shoal for two-thirds across, but near the opposite point* the depth is thirteen fathoms.

(Footnote.  This is Point Record of Captain Bremer, see above.)

On the eastern side of the port there is no danger beyond a quarter of a mile from the shore, excepting a reef of rocks, some of which are dry; this danger, when in a line with a remarkable cliff two miles and a quarter to the south of Table Point, bears East-South-East 1/2 East; close without them the depth is five fathoms.

The INNER HARBOUR is divided into two basins which extend in for two miles on either side of Middle Head, a cliffy projection, surrounded by a rocky shore for a quarter of a mile off.  The anchorage between the entrance and Middle Head is in five and six fathoms mud, and in the centre of the western basin the depth is five fathoms mud.  The shores are higher than usual, and are varied by sandy beaches and cliffs, some of white and others of a red colour.  The western side of the port was not visited, and our tracks and examinations were made principally on the opposite shore.  At the bottom of Knocker’s Bay is a shoal mangrove opening, of no importance.  See volume 1.