This, and other incidents interfering with the preparations for our voyage, were the reasons why we could not leave Dieppe before the 26th of January, 1611. Monsieur de Biancourt, a very accomplished young gentleman, and well versed in matters pertaining to the sea, was our leader and commander. There were thirty-six of us in the ship, which was called _la Grace de Dieu_, of about sixty tons burden. We had only two days of favorable winds; on the third day we suddenly found ourselves carried, by contrary winds and tides, to within a hundred or two hundred paces of the breakers of the isle of Wight, in England; and it was fortunate for us that we found good anchorage there, for otherwise we certainly should have been lost. Leaving this place we put into port at Hyrmice, and then at Newport; by which we lost eighteen days. The 16th of February, first day of lent, [14] a good northwester arising allowed us to depart, and accompanied us out of the English Channel. Now mariners, in coming to Port Royal, are not accustomed to take the direct route from the Ouessant islands to Cape Sable, which would lessen the distance, for in this way, from Dieppe to Port Royal, there would only be about one thousand leagues; but they are in the habit of going South as far as the Azores, and from there to the great bank, thence, according to the winds, to strike for Cape Sable, or Campseaux, or elsewhere. They have told me that they go by way of the Azores for three reasons: first, in order to avoid the north sea, which is very stormy, they say; second, to make use of the south winds, which usually prevail there; third, to be sure of their reckonings; for otherwise it is difficult to take their bearings and arrange their route without error. But none of these causes affected us, although we followed this custom. Not the first, for we were so tossed about by tempests and high seas, that I do not think we gained much by going north or south, south or north; nor the second, because often when we wanted the South, the North wind blew, and vice versa; and certainly not the third, inasmuch as we could not even see the Azores, although we went [15] down as far as 39° 30'. Thus all the calculations of our leaders were confounded, and we had not yet reached the Azores of the great bank when some of them thought we had passed it.[38] The great codfish bank is not, as I thought in France, a kind of sand or mud-bank, appearing above the surface of the sea; but is a great sub-marine plateau 35, 40 and 45 fathoms deep, and in some places twenty-five leagues in extent. They call it bank, because, in coming from the deep sea, it is the first place where bottom is found with the sounding lead. Now upon the border of this great bank, for the space of three or four leagues, the waves are generally very high, and these three or four leagues are called the Azores.