Our friend Port now took his leave of us, and carried with him the box with our Journals, which was to go by the major, and the packet that was to be sent express.  On the 12th, the weather being more moderate, we began to unmoor again; but, after breaking the messenger, and reeving a running purchase with a six-inch hawser, which also broke three times, we were obliged at last to heave a strain at low water, and wait for the flowing of the tide to raise the anchor.  This project succeeded; but not without damaging the cable in the wake of the hawse.  At three we weighed the best bower, and set sail; and at eight having little wind, and the tide making against us, we dropped anchor again in ten fathoms, off the mouth of Rakowina harbour; the ostrog bearing N. by E. 1/2 E., two miles and a half distant; the Needle Rocks on the east side of the passage, S.S.E. 1/2 E.; and the high rock, on the west side of the passage, S.

On the 13th, at four in the morning, we got under way with the ebb tide; and there being a dead calm, the boats were sent ahead to tow the ships.  At ten the wind springing up from the S.E. by S., and the tide having turned, we were again obliged to drop anchor in seven fathoms; the Three Needle Rocks bearing S. 1/2 E.; and the ostrog N. 1/2 E., at the distance of one mile from the nearest land.  After dinner I went with Captain Gore on shore on the east side of the passage, where we saw, in two different places, the remains of extensive villages; and on the side of the hill an old ruined parapet, with four or five embrasures.  It commanded the passage up the mouth of the bay; and in Beering’s time, as he himself mentions, had guns mounted on it.  Near this place were the ruins of some caverns under ground, which we supposed to have been magazines.

At six in the afternoon we weighed with the ebb tide, and turned to windward; but at eight a thick fog arising, we were obliged to bring-to, as our soundings could not afford us a sufficient direction for steering between several sunk rocks, which lie on each side of the passage we had to make.  In the morning of the 14th, the fog clearing away, we weighed as soon as the tide began to ebb, and having little wind, sent the boats ahead to tow; but at ten o’clock, both the wind and tide set in so strong from the sea, that we were again obliged to drop anchor in thirteen fathoms, the high rock bearing W. 1/4 S., distant three quarters of a mile.  We remained fast for the rest of the day, the wind blowing fresh into the mouth of the bay; and toward evening, the weather had a very unusual appearance, being exceedingly dark and cloudy, with an unsettled shifting wind.