Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west, because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth." The fleet, consisting of the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty tons, the _Sunshine_ and _Moonshine_, and a ten-ton pinnace named the _North Star_, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the _Sunshine_ and _North Star_ were sent up the east coast of Greenland, while the _Mermaid_ and _Moonshine_ made for Gilbert Sound.