After steering a north course until seven o’clock and deepening the water to sixty-five fathoms, we gradually hauled round the north end of the Montebello Isles; and at eleven p.m. steered East; but at two o’clock, having decreased the depth from seventy-two to forty-one fathoms, we steered off to the northward until daylight, and then to the East-South-East, in order to anchor in the Mermaid’s Strait to the eastward of Malus Island, to take some stones on board as ballast, for the brig was so very light and leewardly that it would have been running a great risk to approach the land, as she then was.  But in this we were disappointed, for after an interval of close sultry weather, and a severe thunderstorm, a gale of wind set in from the South-West, during which the barometer fell as low as 29.36 inches.  The gale then veered gradually round to the North-West, and obliged us to make sail off the coast, and by the time it moderated we were so far to leeward of Dampier’s Archipelago that I was constrained to alter my plan and give up the idea of taking ballast on board.  I therefore determined upon making Rowley’s Shoals, for the purpose of fixing their position with greater correctness, and examining the extent of the bight round Cape Leveque, which we were obliged to leave unexplored during the earlier part of this voyage.

1822.  February 4.

The first of these objects was effected on the 4th; on which day we passed round the south end of the Imperieuse (the westernmost) Shoal; which we now found to extend nearly four miles more to the southward than had been suspected in 1818, at which period we steered round its north end.

A large patch of dry rocks was also seen on the north-east end of the reef about ten miles from the vessel’s track, and Mr. Roe, from the masthead, thought that the east side of the shoal did not appear to be so steep as the western side.

From noon we steered east to make the shoal seen by the Good Hope, but having sailed in that direction as far as latitude 17 degrees 42 minutes 51 seconds and longitude 119 degrees 32 minutes 4 seconds, without seeing any signs of it for ten miles on either side of our course, we hauled to the wind for the night and sounded in one hundred and forty-five fathoms speckled sand and broken shells.

February 5.

At seven o’clock the following morning we were steering east when broken water was reported bearing from East to East-South-East, but it turned out to be a rippling which we passed through.  These ripplings have been frequently noticed in the vicinity of the reefs, but we have been very little affected by the tides by which they must be occasioned.  At noon we were by observation in 17 degrees 43 minutes 41 seconds and longitude 119 degrees 41 minutes 52 seconds, when we sounded in one hundred and twenty fathoms, speckled sand mixed with broken shells and stones; and at twenty miles farther to the eastward sounded again on the same depth.