82 
SURVEY OP THE INTERTROPICAI. 
1821. Several ivhales, of that species called by 
Aug. 17. whalers “ fin-backs,” were playing about us 
all day, and during the morning two or three 
were seen near the vessel lashing the water 
with their enormous fins and tails, and leaping 
at intervals out of the sea, which foamed around 
them for a considerable distance. 
After anchoring, the wind was variable and light 
from the western quarter, but during the night 
there was a heavy swell. The flood-tide, which 
commenced at nine o’clock, when the depth was 
twenty-eight fathoms, gradually ran stronger 
until midnight, when its rate was two miles per 
hour: high water took place at 3 h. 15 ' a.m., or 
at twelve minutes before the moon passed her 
meridian ; the rise being thirty- six feet. 
18. We were underweigh before six o’clock the 
next morning, and, after steering by the wind 
for a short time towards the southward, (on 
which course the tide being against us we were 
making no progress,) bore up with the inten- 
tion of hauling round the point to leeward for 
anchorage, whence we might examine the place 
by the means of our boats, and wait for more fa- 
vourable weather ; but upon reaching within half 
a mile of the point, we found that a shoal com- 
munication extended across to a string of islands 
projecting several miles to sea in a W.N.W* 
