26 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 
and about five miles from Cape Fullerton, at the entrance to 
Roes Welcome. The harbour is quite small, with room for 
about three ships, and is fully protected by the islands and reefs 
surrounding it. The usual entrance is from the westward, 
where the channel is not above fifty yards wide, and the water 
at high tide is only five fathoms deep. The eastern entrance is 
narrower, and a ship is obliged to make several sharp turns 
when passing through it. Owing to the low even coast, without 
any landmark in the vicinity, the position of the harbour is 
difficult to locate without entering the wide danger-zone of 
shoals. The wide fringe of islands to the westward practically 
ends at Fullerton, so that a ship making the coast may know 
the position by the presence or absence of islands; but as the 
islands are very low it is hard to distinguish them from the 
mainland at a safe distance away, as the shoals and reefs extend 
more than five miles beyond the harbour. The surveys made 
in the spring of 1904 show that a fairly safe channel will be 
found by keeping well to the eastward of the harbour, and by 
then following a northwest course, keeping in line the beacons 
on a small island about a mile outside the harbour. When the 
Beacon island is reached the ship should pass in mid-channel 
between it and the adjoining island to the westward; passing 
these, the outer harbour island should be given a wide berth, 
until the entrance to the harbour is opened fully, a long shoal 
extending from the western point of the island 
On the return of the Neptune to Fullerton, immediate 
preparations were made for the coming winter. The first 
undertaking was the cutting of a large quantity of ice, from a 
fresh-water pond close to the house and about a mile distant 
from the ship. The ice was about nine inches thick, and one 
day's work, by the entire crew, sufficed to cut and to store 
enough to supply the ship with fresh water until the ponds 
melted again in the spring. The detachment of Mounted Police, 
assisted by some of the crew of the Era, were busily engaged 
