Streight of Magellan to Port Famine
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painted geese. We walked more than twelve miles, and found great plenty of fine fresh water, but not the bay that we sought; for we saw no part of the shore, in all our walk from Sandy Point, where a boat could land without the utmost hazard, the water being every where shoal, and the sea breaking very high. We fell in with a great number of the huts or wigwams of the Indians, which appeared to have been very lately deserted, for in some of them the fires which they had kindled were scarcely extinguished; they were in little recesses of the woods, and always close to fresh water. In many places we found plenty of wild celery, and a variety of plants, which probably would be of great benefit to seamen after a long voyage. In the evening, we walked back again, and found the ships at anchor in Sandy Point Bay, at the distance of about half a mile from the shore. The keen air of this place made our people so voraciously hungry that they could have eaten three times their allowance; I was therefore very glad to find some of them employed in hauling the seine, and others on shore with their guns: sixty very large mullets were just taken with the seine, as I came up; and the gunners had good sport, for the place abounded with geese, teale, snipes, and other birds, that were excellent food.
On the 25th, Christmas day, we observed by two altitudes, and found the latitude of Sandy Point to be 53° 10’S. At eight in the morning, we weighed, and having sailed five leagues from Sandy Point, in the direction of S. by E. ½ E. we anchored again in thirty-two fathom, about a mile from the shore; the south point of Fresh Water Bay then bearing N.N.W. distant about four miles; and the southermost land S.E. by S. As we sailed along the shore, at about two miles distance, we had no ground with sixty fathom; but at the distance of one mile, we had from twenty to thirty-two fathom.
At the full and change of the moon, the tide flows off Fresh Water Bay at twelve o’clock; it runs but little, yet flows very much by the shore.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 36 - 37, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/073.html