SAIL ON SECOND NOETHERN CRUIZE. 77 



north from Sydney, where we are to assist in the 

 disemharkation and starting of the party. 



For the first nine days we averag-ed only thirty 

 miles a day, owing' to a long' continuance of calms 

 and light winds with a strong adverse current, 

 which on one occasion set us to E.S.E. fifty-three 

 miles in twenty-four hours. At length, on May 8th 

 M'e picked up a strong southerly hreeze, accompanied 

 by a northerly set. On May 12th we rounded 

 Breaksea Spit, and Captain Stanley finding- his 

 original intention of passing inside of Lady Elliot's 

 Island impracticable, or at least involving* un- 

 necessary delay, determined to bear up NW. by W. 

 keeping outside of the Bunker and Capricorn 

 Groups, and try the channel previously passed 

 through by Captain F. P. Blackwood in H. M. S. 

 Fly. Captain Stanley's remarks on this subject 

 are so important, that I give them verbatim : — 



" After reaching Lady Elliot's Island, we steered 

 a course direct for the High Peak of the Northum- 

 berland Islands, so as to pass between Bunker's 

 Group and Swain's Reefs, which affords a far better 

 entrance into the Inner Passage, than the old route 

 round Breaksea Spit inside the Bunker Group ; 

 when the course requires to be changed, and the 

 channel is much narrower. "We sounded every 

 half-hour without finding bottom, with from 80 to 

 120 fathoms, till we came to the soundings laid 

 down by the Fly, which we found to agree almost 

 exactly with ours. 



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