Streight of Magellan into the South Seas
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and expected every moment to be among the breakers. The long wished-for day at length broke, but the weather was still so thick that no land was to be seen, though we knew it could not be far distant, till after six, when we saw the south shore at about the distance of two miles; and soon after, to our great satisfaction, we saw the Tamar: at this time Cape Monday bore S.E. distant about four miles, and the violence of the gale not abating, we bore away. About seven, both ships came to an anchor in the bay which lies to the eastward of Cape Monday, notwithstanding the sea that rolled in; for we were glad to get anchorage any where. We had now been twice within four leagues of Tuesday’s Bay, at the western entrance of the Streight, and had been twice driven back ten or twelve leagues by such storms as we had now just experienced. When the season is so far advanced as it was when we attempted the passage of this Streight, it is a most difficult and dangerous undertaking, as it blows a hurricane incessantly night and day, and the rain is as violent and constant as the wind, with such fogs as often render it impossible to discover any object at the distance of twice the ship’s length. This day our best bower cable being quite rubbed to pieces, we cut it into junk, and bent a new one, which we rounded with old rigging eight fathom from the anchor.
In the afternoon of the day following, the Tamar parted a new best bower cable, it being cut by the rock, and drove over to the east side of the bay, where she was brought up at a very little distance from some rocks, against which she must otherwise have been dashed to pieces.
At seven o’clock in the morning of the 29th, we weighed and found our small bower cable very much rubbed by the foul ground, so that we were obliged to cut no less than six
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 77, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/113.html