We were now out of sight of land and had been so 4 or 5 days:  but the winds now hanging in the south was an apparent sign that we were still too nigh the shore to receive the true general east trade; as the easterly winds we had before showed that we were too far off the land to have the benefit of the coasting south trade:  and the faintness of both these winds, and their often shifting from the south-south-west to the south-east with squalls, rain and small gales, were a confirmation of our being between the verge of the south coasting trade and that of the true trade; which is here regularly south-east.

The 3rd of May, being in latitude 20 degrees 00 minutes and meridian distance west from Cape Salvador 234 miles, the variation was 7 degrees 00 minutes.  We saw no fowl but shearwaters, as our seamen call them, being a small black fowl that sweep the water as they fly, and are much in the seas that lie without either of the tropics:  they are not eaten.  We caught 3 small sharks, each 6 foot 4 inches long; and they were very good food for us.  The next day we caught 3 more sharks of the same size, and we ate them also, esteeming them as good fish, boiled and pressed, and then stewed with vinegar and pepper.

Excessive number of birds about A dead whale; of the pintado bird, and the petrel, etc.

We had nothing of remark from the 3rd of May to the 10th, only now and then seeing a small whale spouting up the water.  We had the wind easterly and we ran with it to the southward, running in this time from the latitude of 20 degrees 00 minutes to 29 degrees 5 minutes south, and having then 7 degrees 3 minutes east longitude from Cape Salvador; the variation increasing upon us at present, notwithstanding we went east.  We had all along a great difference between the morning and evening amplitudes; usually a degree or two, and sometimes more.  We were now in the true trade, and therefore made good way to the southward to get without the verge of the general tradewind into a westerly wind’s way that might carry us towards the Cape of Good Hope.  By the 12th of May, being in latitude 31 degrees 10 minutes we began to meet with westerly winds, which freshened on us, and did not leave us till a little before we made the Cape.  Sometimes it blew so hard that it put us under a fore-course; especially in the night; but in the daytime we had commonly our main topsail reefed.  We met with nothing of moment; only we passed by a dead whale, and saw millions (as I may say) of sea-fowls about the carcass (and as far round about it as we could see) some feeding, and the rest flying about, or sitting on the water, waiting to take their turns.  We first discovered the whale by the fowls; for indeed I did never see so many fowls at once in my life before, their numbers being inconceivably great:  they were of divers sorts, in bigness, shape and colour.