454 FAIL TO REACH SAN DIEGO. June 1830. 
of Good Success, to complete wood and water, and obtain 
rates for the chronometers, previously to leaving the coast. 
Wind and tide favoured us, and at noon we were moored in 
Good Success Bay. Soon afterwards I left the Beagle, in my 
boat, with a week’s provisions, intending to try to land near 
Cape San Diego, and thence walk to the cape with the instru- 
ments ; but I found a cross swell in the strait, and a rocky 
shore without a place in which the boat could land: though 
I risked knocking her to pieces by trying to land in the 
only corner where there seemed to be any chance. After this 
escape I tried farther on, without success; by which time it 
became dark, and if I had not returned immediately, while the 
ebb-tide made, the flood would have begun and obliged me to 
lie at a grapnel, during a frosty night, in a strong tide-way, 
with the boat’s crew wet through: I turned back, therefore, 
and pulled towards Success Bay, assisted by the tide, but 
the cockling sea it made half filled the boat more than 
once, and we were thankful when again safely on board the 
Beagle. 
‘** Having failed in this scheme for settling the latitude of 
Cape San Diego, I thought of effecting it by bringing the 
Beagle to an anchor in the strait, two or three miles to the 
eastward of Good Success Bay, and thence connecting the 
Cape to known points by triangulation; the heads of this bay 
and Cape Good Success, quite correctly placed, serving as the 
foundation. 
** June 5th. I obtained some sights of the sun this morning 
and observations at noon, besides bearings and angles to verify 
former ones. All hands were busy wooding and watering, pre- 
paratory to returning to Monte Video. A large albatross was 
shot by my coxswain, which measured nearly fourteen feet 
across the wings. 
“6th. The snow which covered the ground when we were 
first here was quite gone, and the weather was comparatively 
mild. The frost at night was not more than in a common 
winter’s night in England, the thermometer ranging from 27° 
to 32°. The tide was carefully noticed this day, being full 
