This Fair Weather Gave Us An Opportunity To Complete Our Wood And
Water, To Overhaul The Rigging, Caulk The Ship, And Put Her In A Condition
For Sea.
Fair weather was, however, now at an end; for it began to rain
this evening, and continued without intermission till noon the next day,
when we cast off the shore fasts, hove the ship out of the creek to her
anchor, and steadied her with an hawser to the shore.
On the 27th, hazy weather, with showers of rain. In the morning I set out,
accompanied by Mr Pickersgill and the two Mr Forsters, to explore the arm
or inlet I discovered the day I returned from the head of the bay. After
rowing about two leagues up it, or rather down, I found it to communicate
with the sea, and to afford a better outlet for ships bound to the north
than the one I came in by. After making this discovery, and refreshing
ourselves on broiled fish and wild fowl, we set out for the ship, and got
on board at eleven o'clock at night, leaving two arms we had discovered,
and which ran into the east, unexplored. In this expedition we shot forty-
four birds, sea-pies, ducks, &c., without going one foot out of our way, or
causing any other delay than picking them up.
Having got the tents, and every other article on board on the 28th, we only
now waited for a wind to carry us out of the harbour, and through New
Passage, the way I proposed to go to sea. Every thing being removed from
the shore, I set fire to the top-wood, &c., in order to dry a piece of the
ground we had occupied, which, next morning, I dug up, and sowed with
several sorts of garden seeds. The soil was such as did not promise success
to the planter; it was, however, the best we could find. At two o clock in
the afternoon, we weighed with a light breeze at S.W., and stood up the bay
for the New Passage. Soon after we had got through, between the east end of
Indian Island and the west end of Long Island, it fell calm, which obliged
us to anchor in forty-three fathom water, under the north side of the
latter island.
In the morning of the 30th we weighed again with a light breeze at west,
which, together with all our boats a-head towing, was hardly sufficient to
stem the current. For, after struggling till six o'clock in the evening,
and not getting more than five miles from our last anchoring-place, we
anchored under the north side of Long Island, not more than one hundred
yards from the shore, to which we fastened a hawser.
At day-light next morning, May 1st, we got again under sail, and attempted
to work to windward, having a light breeze down the bay. At first we gained
ground, but at last the breeze died away; when we soon lost more than we
had got, and were obliged to bear up for a cove on the north side of Long
Island, where we anchored in nineteen fathom water, a muddy bottom:
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