June 1830.
of Good Success, to complete wood and water, and obtain
rates for the chronometers, previously to leaving the coast.
AA/ind and tide favoured us, and at noon we were moored in
Good Success Bay. Soon afterwards I left the Beagle, in my
boat, with a week’s provisions, intending to try to land near
Cape San Diego, and thence walk to the cape with the instruments
; but I found a cross swell in the strait, and a rocky
shore without a place in which the boat could land : though
I risked knocking her to pieces by trying to land in the
only corner where there seemed to be any chance. After this
escape I tried farther on, without success; by which time it
became dark, and if I had not returned immediately, while the
ebb-tide made, the flood would have begun and obliged me to
lie at a grapnel, during a frosty night, in a strong tide-way,
with the boat’s crew wet through : I turned back, therefore,
and pulled towards Success Bay, assisted by the tide, but
the cockling sea it made half filled the boat more than
once, and we were thankful when again safely on board the
Beagle.
“ Having failed in this scheme for settling the latitude of
Cape San Diego, I thought of effecting it by bringing the
Beagle to an anchor in the strait, two or three miles to the
eastward of Good Success Bay, and thence connecting the
Cape to known points by triangulation; the heads of this bay
and Cape Good Success, quite correctly placed, serving as the
foundation.
“ June 5th. I obtained some sights of the sun this morning
and observations at noon, besides bearings and angles to verify
former ones. All hands were busy wooding and watering, preparatory
to returning to Monte Video. A large albatross was
shot by my coxswain, which measured nearly fourteen feet
across the wings.
“ 6th. The snow which covered the ground when we were
first here was quite gone, and the weather was comparatively
mild. The frost at night was not more than in a common
winter’s night in England, the thermometer ranging from 2 T
to 32“. The tide was carefully noticed this day, being full
moon. It was high water at a quarter past four, and the tide
rose seven feet.
“ 7th. AVe unmoored, weighed, stood to the eastward and
anchored with the stream anchor, and a large hawser, in fifty
fathoms water, about three miles from Success Bay. After
taking the required angles and bearings we weighed at eleven,
and stood towards Cape San Diego with the first of the flood.
Tlie tide being strong, we made rapid progress, and were soon
out of the strait; but wishing to see as much of the N.E. coast
as possible, in our progress northward, we hauled to the wind
and kept near the land during the night, as the weather was
fine and settled.
“ Before leaving Good Success Bay and the Strait of Le
Maire, I felt satisfied that we had acquainted ourselves with
the tides, which are as regular and as little to be dreaded as in
any part of the world where they run with strength. They
will materially assist any vessel in her passage through the
strait; which is very wide, perfectly free from obstacles of any
kind, and has Good Success Bay close at hand, in case wind
or tide should fail. AVhen the tide opposes the wind and swell,
there is always a heavy, and, for small vessels, dangerous ‘race’
oif Cape San Diego, where the water is more shoal than elsewhere
(to), we found it so at a neap flood-tide, but let it be
remembered that on another day, at the top of the springs,
being the day after full moon, we passed the same spot, at
half flood, with the water perfectly smooth, and although
strong eddies were seen in every direction, the vessel’s steerage
was but little afiected by them. It is high water in Success
Bay soon after four in the afternoon, on the full and change
days, and low water exactly at ten in the morning. The flood
tide-stream begins to make to the northward about an hour
after low water, and the ebb, to the southward, about the same
time after high water. The tides rise from six to eight feet,
perpendicularly. At Cape Pillar the turn of tide, with high
water, is at noon: but along the S.AV. and S.E. coast the time
(to) Five fathoms only were found in one spot during the Beagle’s last
voyage.—R. F.
.»I