The ship rode north-west, till between eight and nine o’clock, when it appeared to be high water, and the depth was 35 fathoms; at 9h 34’ the moon passed the meridian, and we were then riding S. by W., to a tide which ran at the strongest one and a quarter mile per hour.  Between three and four in the morning [SATURDAY 9 OCTOBER 1802] this tide had done, the depth was 31 fathoms, and the ship afterwards rode N. N. E. till daylight.  The first of the flood therefore came from the N. N. E. and the latter part from N. W.; it was high water at one hour before the moon’s passage, and the rise at least three fathoms, or eighteen feet.  This time of high water coincides with that of Broad Sound; but it is remarkable, that at the Percy Isles, lying between them, it should be three hours earlier.  The rise in Broad Sound was five fathoms, and three, or more, amongst the reefs; whereas at the Percy Isles, there was nothing on the shore to indicate a higher tide than two fathoms.

In the morning we steered E. N. E., with a light air from the southward; the brig was ahead, and at half past nine, made the signal for immediate danger; upon which the stream anchor was dropped in 16 fathoms.  The tide ran one mile and a half to the E. N. E, and this leading me to expect some opening in that direction, I sent the master to sound past the brig; and on his finding deeper water we followed, drifting with the tide.  At eleven he made the signal for being on a shoal, and we came to, in 35 fathoms, broken coral and sand; being surrounded by reefs, except to the westward from whence we had come.  On the outside were high breakers, not more than three or four miles distant; these terminated at E. by S., and between them and other reefs further on, there seemed a possibility of finding an outlet; but no access to it could be had, except by a winding circuit amongst the great mass of banks to the southward, which it was not advisable to make upon such an uncertainty.  I therefore determined to remain at the present anchorage till low water, when the reefs would be dry, and the channels between them, if any such there were, would be visible:  and should nothing better then present itself, to steer north-westward, as close within the line of the high breakers as possible, until an opening should be found.

The latitude observed to the north and south, at this fifth anchorage amongst the reefs, was 20 deg. 53’ 15”; longitude by time keeper, 151 deg. 5’ east.  In the afternoon, I went upon the reef with a party of the gentlemen; and the water being very clear round the edges, a new creation, as it was to us, but imitative of the old, was there presented to our view.  We had wheat sheaves, mushrooms, stags horns, cabbage leaves, and a variety of other forms, glowing under water with vivid tints of every shade betwixt green, purple, brown, and white; equalling in beauty and excelling in grandeur the most favourite parterre of the curious florist.  These were different species of coral and fungus, growing, as it were, out of the solid rock, and each had its peculiar form and shade of colouring; but whilst contemplating the richness of the scene, we could not long forget with what destruction it was pregnant.