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At six o’clock in the morning, of Tuesday the 16th, we saw the island of Palma, and found the Ship 15 miles to the southwards of her reckoning. As we were failing along this island, at the rate of no lets than eight’miles an hour, with the wind at east, it died away at once; so that within less than two minutes the Ship had no motion, though we were at least four leagues distant from the Shore. Palma lies in lat. 28° 40’ N. long. 17 ° 48’ W.
On the 20th we tried the current, and found it set S. W. by W. one mile an hour: this day we saw two herons flying to the eastward, and a great number of. bonettos about the ship, of which we caught eight.
In the night between the 21st and 22d we lost our companion the Swallow, and about eight in the morning we saw the island of Sal, bearing S.½. 4 W.; at noon it bore S. 3/4 W. distant 8 leagues; and at noon on the23d, the nearest land of the island of Bonavista bore from S. to W. S. W. distant seven or eight miles, the east-end, at the same time, bearing W. distant two leagues. In this situation we sounded, and had only 15 fathom, with rocky ground; at the same time we saw a. very great rippling, which we suppose caused by a reef, stretching off miles, and breakers without us, distant also about three miles in the direction of S. E. We steered between the rippling and the breakers, but after hauling the ship off about half a mile, we had no soundings. The Prince Frederick passed very near the breakers, in the S. E. but had no soundings; yet these breakers are supposed to be dangerous. The middle of the isle of Sal is in lat. 16° 55’ N. Iong. 21° 59’ W.; the middle of Bonavista is in lat. 16° 10’ long. 23° W.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 365, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/365.html