92 
A VOYAGE TO 
[ East Coast. 
1802. the reefs, was so 0 53' 10", from observations to the north and south, 
Tuesday i2. and longitude by time keeper 150° 42' east. At one o’clock our 
course was resumed, and continued till sunset in clear water ; when 
we came to, in 32 fathoms sand and shells, not far to the south of 
where the first high breakers had been seen, in the afternoon of the 
6th. A dry reef bore N. i E., distant two and a half, and another 
E. \ S. one-and-half miles; and from the mast head others were seen 
at the back of them, extending from N. W. by N. to near S. E. by E. 
Wednea. 13. Q n g 0 j n g upon deck next morning at daybreak, to get the 
ship under way, I found her situation different to that wherein we 
had anchored in the evening. The wind had been light, and as 
usual in such cases, the cable was shortened in; and it appeared 
from the bearings, and from the soundings marked every hour on 
the log board, that between four and five in the morning, the anchor 
had been lifted by the tide, or dragged, two miles north-east amongst 
the reefs, from 33 into 28 fathoms ; where it had again caught. 
This change of plajce had not been perceived ; and it was difficult, 
from the circumstance having occurred at the relief of the watch, to 
discover with whom the culpable inattention lay ; but it might have 
been attended with fatal consequences. 
Having weighed the anchor, we steered westward with the 
brig and whale boat a-head, until past ten; when the eastern breeze 
died away and the stream anchor was dropped in 30 fathoms, fine 
white sand. The reefs were then covered, and a dry bank, bearing 
N. W. by W. five or six miles, was the sole object above water; and 
towards noon it was covered also. Between this bank and the great 
reef and breakers, was a space which seemed to be open ; but it was 
not sufficiently large, nor did the tide run with that regularity and 
strength, to induce a belief that, if there were a passage, it could 
be such as I desired for the vessels. We therefore again steered 
westward, on a breeze rising at N. W., until reefs were seen ex- 
tending southward from the dry bank, and we bore away along their 
