On the 4th do. in the morning the wind was S.W. by S., still with a very hollow swell.  During the day the wind went round to S.S.W., upon which we weighed anchor and got under sail before noon.  We stood out to sea on a W.N.W. course in order to get off the lee-shore.  At noon we were in 28 deg. 50’ S.L., where the land began to fall off one point, to wit North by west and South by east.  In the afternoon the wind went round to the south, and we shaped our course westward.  Towards evening we became aware of a shoal straight ahead or west of us, at only a musket-shot’s distance, we being in 25 fathom fine sandy bottom.  We turned the rudder and ran off it half a mile to E.S.E., where we came to anchor in 27 fathom fine bottom; from noon till the evening we had been sailing on a W.N.W. course, and we were now at 5 miles’ distance from the mainland.  In the night it fell a dead calm with fine weather and a south-by-east wind.

{Page 59}

On the 5th do. in the morning the wind being S.S.E. with lovely weather, we weighed anchor and sailed S.S.W. for an hour, at the end of which we observed more breakers, shallows and islets ahead of us and alongside our course; the wind then turned more to eastward, so that we could run to the south and S.S.E.  This reef or shoal extended S.S.W. and N.N.E.; along it we sounded in 27, 28 and 29 fathom sandy bottom; at 11 o’clock in the forenoon we had lost sight of the mainland; at noon we were in 28 deg. 59’ S. Lat., the extremity of the reef lying W.S.W. of us, and we being in 50 or 60 fathom, foul steep bottom.  In the afternoon the wind began to abate, but the current carried us to the west, while the rocks here fell off far to westward, we being at about 87 miles’ distance from the mainland by estimation.  We had a dead calm the whole night and drifted along the rock, on which we heard the waves break the whole time.

On the 6th do. in the morning we had lost sight of the rocks; about 10 o’clock the wind began to blow from the W.N.W., so that we ran nearly in the direction of the rocks.  At noon we were in 28 deg. 44’ S. Lat.; it began to blow hard from the N.W., so that in the afternoon we kept tacking off and on, and found ourselves carried northward by the current.  In the evening we stood out to sea away from the rocks again, and sounded in 40 fathom foul rocky bottom; this shallow here extends seaward S.E. and N.W.  In the evening it began to blow very hard, so that we had to run on with shortened mainsails, the wind being variable.

On the 7th do. in the morning the wind abated, so that we made sail again; at noon we found our latitude to be 29 deg. 30’; we went over to northward to get sight of the mainland again, but the wind suddenly turned sharply to W.N.W., so that we had to stand out to sea again.

On the 8th do. at noon we were in 29 deg. 7’ S. Lat., course held N.E.  In the evening we saw the breakers again.  We therefore stood out to sea on a west-south-west course the whole night with a north-west-wind; and it began to blow so hard that we had again to take in the topsails.