The light winds which we had met with for some time past, with the present unsettled state of the weather, and the little appearance of any change for the better, induced Captain Clerke to alter his plan of keeping within the tropical latitudes; and accordingly, at six this evening, we began to steer north-west by north, at which time our latitude was 20° 23ʹ, and our longitude 180° 40ʹ. During the continuance of the light winds, which prevailed almost constantly ever since our departure from the Sandwich Islands, the weather was very close, and the air hot and sultry; the thermometer being generally at 80°, and sometimes at 83°. All this time, we had a considerable swell from the north-east; and in no period of the voyage did the ships roll and strain so violently. In the morning of the 1st of April, the wind changed from the south-east to the north-east by east, and blew a fresh breeze, till the morning of the 4th, when it altered two points more to the east, and by noon increased to a strong gale, which lasted till the afternoon of the 5th, attended with hazy weather. It then again altered its direction to the south-east, became more moderate, and was accompanied by heavy showers of rain. During all this time, we kept steering to the north-west, against a slow but regular current from that quarter, which caused a constant variation from our reckoning by the log, of fifteen miles a day. On the 4th, being then in the latitude 26° 17ʹ, and longitude 173° 30ʹ, we passed prodigious quantities of what sailors call Portuguese men-of-war (_holothuria physalis_), and were also accompanied with a great number of sea birds, amongst which we observed, for the first time, the albatross and sheerwater. On the 6th, at noon, we lost the trade-wind, and were suddenly taken a-back, with the wind from the north north-west. At this time, our latitude was 29° 50ʹ, and our longitude 170° 1ʹ. As the old running-ropes were constantly breaking in the late gales, we reeved what new ones we had left, and made such other preparations, as were necessary for the very different climate with which we were now shortly to encounter. The fine weather we met with between the tropics, had not been idly spent. The carpenters found sufficient employment in repairing the boats. The best bower-cable had been so much damaged by the foul ground in Karakakooa Bay, and whilst we were at anchor off Oneeheow, that we were obliged to cut forty fathoms from it; in converting of which, with other old cordage, into spun-yarn, and applying it to different uses, a considerable part of the people were kept constantly employed by the boatswain. The airing of sails and other stores, which, from the leakiness of the decks and sides of the ships, were perpetually subject to be wet, had now become a frequent as well as a laborious and troublesome part of our duty.