progress to the westward was stopped by a considerable reef extending
north and south parallel with the land of Cape Bougainville. During the
afternoon we had the wind and tide against us so that we made no
progress. Some bights in the coast were approached with the intention of
anchoring in them but the water was so deep and the ground so
unfavourable for it that the stream anchor was eventually dropped in the
offing in twenty-two fathoms: where during the night the tide set with
unusual velocity and ran at the rate of one knot and three-quarters per
hour.

October 9.

In the morning a view from the masthead enabled me to see a confused mass
of rocks and islets in the South-West. At eight o'clock the flood tide
commenced and the anchor being weighed, we steered towards the bottom of
the gulf; on our way to which the positions of several small rocks and
islets, which form a part of this archipelago, were fixed. At noon our
latitude was 14 degrees 7 minutes 15 seconds, when the hill, which we
ascended over Encounter Cove in Vansittart Bay, was seen bearing South 88
1/2 degrees East. The land to the southward was still far distant but
with a fresh sea breeze we made rapid progress towards it and by four
o'clock entered an extensive port at the bottom of the gulf and anchored
in a bay on its western shore, land-locked, in four fathoms and
three-quarters, mud. In finding this anchorage we considered ourselves
fortunate for the freshness of the breeze in so dangerous a situation
made me feel uneasy for our only anchor, which we must have dropped at
night, however exposed our situation might have been: by midnight the
breeze fell and we had a dead calm.

October 10.