At noon this day, our latitude by account was 47° 52ʹ, and our longitude from Cape Saunders 1° 8ʹ E. We stood to the southward till half an hour past three in the afternoon; and then, being in latitude 48° S. and longitude 188° W., and seeing no appearance of land, we tacked and stood to the northward, having a large swell from the S. W. by W. At noon the next day, our latitude was 46° 42ʹ S.; and Cape Saunders bore N. 46° W. distant eighty-six miles. The south-west swell continuing till the 3d, confirmed our opinion, that there was no land in that quarter. At four in the afternoon, we stood to the westward with all the sail we could make. In the morning of the 4th, we found the variation to be 16° 16ʹ E. This day we saw some whales and seals, as we had done several times after our having passed the streight; but we saw no seal while we were upon the coast of Eahienomauwe. We sounded both in the night and this morning, but had no ground with one hundred and fifty fathom. At noon, we saw Cape Saunders bearing N. ½ W.; and our latitude by observation was 46° 31ʹ S. At half an hour past one o’clock, we saw land bearing W. by S., which we steered for, and before it was dark were within three or four miles of it: during the whole night we saw fires upon it, and at seven in the morning were within about three leagues of the shore, which appeared to be high, but level. At three o’clock in the afternoon, we saw the land extending from N. E. by N. to N. W. ½ N.; and soon after we discovered some low land, which appeared like an island, bearing S. ½ W. We continued our course to the W. by S., and in two hours we saw high land over the low land, extending to the southward as far as S. W. by S.; but did not appear to be joined to the land to the northward, so that there is either water, a deep bay, or low land between them.
At noon on the 6th, we were nearly in the same situation as at noon on the day before: in the afternoon we found the variation, by several azimuths and the amplitude, to be 15° 10ʹ E. On the 7th at noon, we were in latitude 47° 6ʹ S., and had made twelve miles easting during the last twenty-four hours. We stood to the westward the remainder of this day, and all the next till sunset, when the extremes of the land bore from N. by E. to W. distant about seven or eight leagues: in this situation our depth of water was fifty-five fathom, and the variation by amplitude 16° 29ʹ E. The wind now veered from the N. to the W., and as we had fine weather, and moonlight, we kept standing close upon the wind to the S. W. all night. At four in the morning, we had sixty fathom water; and at daylight we discovered under our bow a ledge of rocks, extending from S. by W. to W. by S. upon which the sea broke very high: they were not more than three quarters of a mile distant, yet we had five-and-forty fathom water. As the wind was at N. W. we could not now weather them, and as I was unwilling to run to leeward, I tacked and made a trip to the eastward; the wind however soon after coming to the northward, enabled us to get clear of all. Our soundings, while we were passing within the ledge, were from thirty-five to forty-seven fathom, with a rocky bottom.