At 6 AM we weigh'd and stood out of the Bay which I have named Poverty Bay because it afforded us no one thing we wanted / Lat^de 38°..42' S. Long^de 181°..36' W^t / it is in the form of a Horse shoe _^^{and is known by an Isld lying close und[er] the NE point} the two points which forms the entrance are high with steep white clifts and lay a league and a half or two leagues from each other NEBE and SWBW.  The depth of water in this Bay is from 12 to 6 and 5 fathoms a sandy bottom and good anchorage but you lay open to the winds between the South and East. Boats can go in and out of the river above mentioned at any time of tide in fine weather but as there is a bar at the entrance on which the sea some times runs so high that no boat can get either in [or] out which happen'd while we lay here     however I beleive that boats can generaly land on the NE side of the river     The shore of this bay from a little within each entrance is a low flat sand but this is only a narrow slip for the face of the Country appears with a variety of hills and vallies all cloathed with woods and Verdure and to all appearence well inhabeted especialy in the Vallies leading up from the bay where we dayly saw smooks at a great distance in land, and far back in the Country are very high mountains. At Noon the SW Point of Poverty Bay / which I have named Young Nicks head after the Boy who first saw this land / bore NBW distant 3 or 4 Leagues, being at this time a bout 3 Miles from the shore and had 25 fathom.   the Main land extending from NEBN to South. the southern xetremity seem'd to end in a point beind which we had seen no land My intention is to fowlow the direction of the Coast to the Southward as far as the Latitude of 40° or 41° and then to return to the northward in case we meet with nothing to incourage us to proceed farther —

Voyaging Accounts