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Updated: June 5, 2025
We passed the night in the valley above the cascade: this valley is extensive, and a very large deep rivulet runs through it. At day-light on the 19th, we set out on our return to Sydney-Bay, where we arrived at four in the afternoon, with scarcely a rag to cover ourselves, the cloaths being torn off our backs by the briars.
The ground in the road off Sydney-Bay is very foul in general, although there may be some clear spots. The Golden-Grove parted her cable in the road, but regained her anchor, which the Supply was not lucky enough to accomplish; and she had the additional misfortune of nearly ruining two new cables in sweeping for it.
The tide sets right through between the islands, and when the flood runs to the westward, it sets very strong round Nepean-Island into the bight of Sydney-Bay; therefore all vessels ought to be particularly cautious not to go within Nepean-Island with an inblowing wind: should the wind be from the eastward or westward, vessels might stand very close in; but even this ought not to be done, except for the purpose of taking a boat up, and then the tide must be considered.
The passage between Point Hunter and Nepean Island is a very good one, there being three fathoms close to Nepean Isle, and eight fathoms in mid-channel. I sounded close along the back of the reef which runs along Sydney-Bay, and found four fathoms within a ship's length of the reef. I returned at sun-set, having caught thirty-six very fine fish, which were issued out as usual.
I proposed building a strong log store-house at Cascade-Bay, and making the landing place there more easy of access; which, from the increased number of the inhabitants on the island, was now become absolutely necessary; especially as landing there is much oftener practicable than in Sydney-Bay: indeed, I should have got this business done, but that it would have been a great hindrance to cultivation, which I ever thought was the principal object to attend to.
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.
The frequent accidents which had happened to boats here, made me anxious to search for a better landing place, or a place where landing might be practicable, when the surf ran too high to land in Sydney-Bay; and Lieutenant Ball having mentioned one as likely in Cascade-Bay, on the north side of the island, I set out at day-light in the morning, taking three men along with me, in search of it; proposing, at the same time, to examine Ball-Bay in my road.
By the mean of several meridional altitudes of the sun, and a great number of lunar observations, the latitude of Sydney-Bay is 29° 04' 40" south, and its longitude 168° 12' east, of Greenwich. The form of the island is a long square, and it contains about fourteen thousand acres: it is six miles in length and four in breadth. Face of the country.
I went out in the morning of the 23d, to survey the west side of Sydney-Bay, in the course of which, I found most of the bones belonging to the body of one of the men who were drowned on the 6th of August, 1788: I brought them to the settlement, where they were interred.
The weather often was very favourable for landing in Sydney-Bay, and the boat was frequently sent out; but the surf often rose presently afterwards which made it dangerous for her to come on shore, so that she was obliged to go to Ball Bay, and men were sent from the settlement to haul her up, which occasioned a great loss of time: I therefore resolved to send Mr.
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