1802.
September.
attention to be paid to the tides during the night. At eleven o'clock, when the flood had ceased running, the depth was sounded and the lead line measured, and the same at half past five in the morningSaturday 11. when it was low water; the difference was no less than thirty-two feet, and it wanted a day of being full moon; so that the springs may reach two or three feet higher. The flood set S. by E., but its greatest rate did not exceed one mile and three quarters an hour.
At daylight the wind was south-east, directly against us. We backed and filled, drifting up with the flood between the shoals on each side, and having the Lady Nelson and a boat a-head; but on approaching the end of the channel, our passage into the sound was blocked up by a bank running across, upon which there was not water enough for the ship by a fathom, and we therefore anchored. At nine the tide had risen a fathom, and we passed over into the open sound; the depth immediately increasing to 4 and 7 fathoms, reduced to low water. So long as the flood continued running we worked up the sound; and when it ceased, anchored three miles from a shallow opening in the low western shore, the second which had been observed. We again proceeded upwards with the evening's tide until dusk; and at nine next morningSunday 12. passed a fifth opening, and anchored abreast of the hilly projection on its east side, which I have named Upper Head, in 4 fathoms, soft bottom, two-thirds of a mile from the shore. This was the first place on the main where there was any prospect of being able to land; for the western shore, thus far up, was equally low, and as much over-run with mangroves and defended by muddy flats, as the shores of Keppel Bay.
It being my intention to explore the head of Broad Sound with the brig and whale boat, a situation where tents could be fixed and an easy communication held with the ship during my absence, was the object now sought; and I immediately went with a party of the gentlemen, to ascertain how far Upper Head was calculated for our purpose. We landed at half flood, without difficulty; and on