There is a very remarkable rock, which lies about 12 or 14 miles to the southward of the island, and which is named Ball’s-pyramid, and has much the appearance of a church steeple at a distance; but as you come near, it is exceedingly high and perpendicular:  we passed in the evening between the island and the pyramid, and had 26 fathoms within two miles of Mount Gower, over a rocky bottom.  This island I judge to be about three miles and a half long, north-north-west and south-south-east; it is very narrow across.  There is anchorage on both sides of it, but the bottom is foul.  On the west side there is a bay, off which lies a reef parallel to the shore, with good swatches, or passages through for boats; this reef breaks off the sea from the shore, which is a fine sandy beach, so that there is no difficulty in landing.  I have observed before, that turtle are sometimes caught here, and that there are many birds upon the island.

On the 13th, at two o’clock in the morning, we made Norfolk Island, which I did not expect we should have done quite so soon, but the easterly current, which is commonly found here, had been strong:  we brought to till day-light, and then, as the wind was fresh from the south-west, I well knew there could be no landing in Sydney-bay, where the settlement is fixed, on account of the high surf, which southerly winds occasion, I therefore bore away, and ran round to the north-east side of the island into a bay called Cascade-bay; where, after a few days of moderate weather, and an off-shore wind, it is possible to land; but that only on one spot, which is a rock that projects some distance into the sea, and has deep water to it:  on that rock I landed, on the afternoon of the 13th, all the marines, and a considerable number of the convicts, but being set to the eastward in the night, I did not land the remainder until the 15th, when they were also put on shore on the same place.

These people were no sooner on shore than the wind shifted to the eastward, and the weather became hazy and blew strong, so that I had no prospect of being able to land any part of the provisions.  We had put on shore from the Sirius and Supply 270 people, and had no opportunity of sending any stores with them, as we were now driven out of sight of the island.  I knew the exhausted state of the stores there; I was also acquainted with the many difficulties which Lieutenant Ball, commander of the Supply, had met with in the different voyages he had made from Port Jackson to this island, with provisions; and the length of time he had, in some of these voyages, been obliged to cruize, before he could have any access to the shore; so continually does the surf break all round it:  these considerations gave me much anxiety and uneasiness.