On the 10th, at eight o’clock in the morning, we weighed anchor, and with a steady gale at south east, turned through the channel, between the small isles called Makkahaa and Monooafai; it being much wider than the channel between the last mentioned island and Pangimodoo. The flood set strong in our favour, till we were the length of the channel leading up to the _lagoon_, where the flood from the eastward meets that from the west. This, together with the indraught of the _lagoon_, and of the shoals before it, causeth strong riplings and whirlpools. To add to these dangers, the depth of water in the channel exceeds the length of a cable; so that there is no anchorage, except close to the rocks, where we met with forty and forty-five fathoms, over a bottom of dark sand. But, then, here a ship would be exposed to the whirlpools. This frustrated the design which I had formed, of coming to an anchor, as soon as we were through the narrows, and of making an excursion to see the funeral. I chose rather to lose that ceremony, than to leave the ships in a situation, in which I did not think them safe. We continued to ply to windward, between the two tides, without either gaining or losing an inch, till near high water, when, by a favourable slant, we got into the eastern tide’s influence. We expected there to find the ebb to run strong to the eastward in our favour; but it proved so inconsiderable, that, at any other time, it would not have been noticed. This informed us, that most of the water, which flows into the _lagoon_, comes from the north west, and returns the same way. About five in the afternoon, finding that we could not get to sea before it was dark, I came to an anchor, under the shore of Tongataboo, in forty-five fathoms’ water; and about two cables length from the reef, that runs along that side of the island. The Discovery dropped anchor under our stern; but before the anchor took hold, she drove off the bank, and did not recover it till after midnight. We remained at this station, till eleven o’clock the next day, when we weighed, and plyed to the eastward. But it was ten at night before we weathered the east end of the island, and were enabled to stretch away for Middleburg, or Eooa (as it is called by the inhabitants), where we anchored at eight o’clock the next morning, in forty fathoms’ water, over a bottom of sand, interspersed with coral rocks; the extremes of the island extending, from N. 40° E. to S. 22° W.; the high land of Eooa, S. 45° E.; and Tongataboo, from N. 70° W. to N. 19° W.; distant about half a mile from the shore; being nearly the same place where I had my station in 1773, and then named by me, _English Road_.