Saturday 1 October 1836

1 October-At six a.m. made sail for the brig; at half past eight got on board, and at nine under way once more in search of Jones’s harbour. Running down the coast, I was enchanted with the extent of the plain to the northward of the Mount Lofty range; and as we had very little wind, our progress was slow, and consequently more time for observation; all the glasses in the ship were in requisition. At length seeing something like the mouth of a small river, and a country with trees so dispersed as to allow the sight of most luxuriant green underneath, I immediately stood in for it, and at fifteen minutes past four p.m. came to an anchor in three and a half fathoms in mud and weeds, about one and a half miles from the mouth of the river. We had hardly furled sails before it came on to blow a fresh breeze from W.N.W., and a high swell succeeded immediately. We veered away to forty fathoms, and got the sheet-anchor ready at half past seven; blowing very fresh with hard rain at eight, let go the sheet-anchor, and veered away the small bower to sixty fathoms, and twenty on the sheet; blowing hard all night, with a heavy swell, but the brig held on well.