A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 2: Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schoonerFlinders, Matthew
History
A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 2: Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner
Flinders, Matthew
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Voyages and travels
Murray's Islands should not be passed, or quitted if the ship have
anchored there, later than ten or eleven o'clock in the morning; because
the sun will be getting ahead and obscure the sight before another good
anchorage can be secured. On passing the islands, keep the reef which
lies five miles to the north about a mile on the starbord hand, steering
W. ½ S. by compass, with a boat ahead; for in this part there are many
tide ripplings scarcely to be distinguished from the reefs. Having passed
the ripplings, haul a point more to the southward; and after having run
eight or ten miles, from the time that the largest island bore south,
there will be very few reefs to the northward, and Darnley's Island will
be seen. On the larbord hand there will be a great mass of reefs: and
these it is necessary to follow at the distance of two or three miles,
steering mostly W. S. W., and gradually more southward as they are found
to trend. Some small patches will occasionally be met with; but having
the boat to go ahead, and the commander, or a careful officer looking out
aloft, the Investigator's track between them may be safely followed. The
leading mark in all this part of the course, is the line of the great
south-eastern reefs; and the situation of the ship may be known at any
time, by laying down cross bearings of Murray's and Darnley's Islands on
the chart, allowing, if the ship's head be westward and the compass on
the top of the binnacle, 5° of east variation.
Several low, woody isles will come in sight ahead, or on the starbord
bow; and before reaching the end of the south-eastern reefs, _Hay-way
Island_, which is the southernmost of them, will be seen to the
southwest; and here I would recommend the ship to anchor for the night.
If this island can be passed, however, before three in the afternoon, and
the sun do not obscure the sight, she may push on south-westward till an
hour before sunset; and anchor under the lee of any of those sand banks
which lie in the route, the ground being better here than in the eastern
part of the Strait.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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