May 31.
The next morning after a stormy night we steered to the northward, and made the south entrance of Apsley Strait, which was recognised by the peculiar shape of Buchanan's Islets lying off it, one of which has a flat-topped summit.
The time had now arrived for our leaving the coast: our provisions were drawing to an end, and we had only a sufficiency of bread to carry us back to Port Jackson, although we had been all the voyage upon a reduced allowance: our water had also failed, and several casks which we had calculated upon being full were found to be so bad that the water was perfectly useless: these casks were made at Sydney, and proved, like our bread casks, to have been made from the staves of salt-provision casks: besides this defalcation, several puncheons were found empty, and it was therefore doubly necessary that we should resort to Timor, without any more delay.
We therefore bore up, and at four o'clock the coast was lost sight of from:
Latitude: 11 degrees 43 minutes 45 seconds. Longitude: 129 degrees 47 minutes 0 seconds.
From this, having ran four miles and a half on a North-West course, we passed over a small coral bank in thirteen fathoms; at eight o'clock, we were in forty-two fathoms sandy mud.
1818. June 1.
But between midnight and four a.m., we passed over another coral bank, on which the least water was eighteen fathoms.
June 2.
On the 2nd June, two small birds were caught; they proved to be the Java swallow (Hirundo esculenta), the nest of which is esteemed as a great delicacy, and is an article of trade between the Malays and Chinese. Large quantities of pumice-stone were also seen floating on the water; on one piece was found a sea centipede (Amphinome sp.), about four inches long, covered with fine bristly hair; it was feeding upon two barnacles (Lepas anatifera) which had attached themselves to the stone.