"Finding this morning (June 4th), that the swell was too high to allow a boat to be lowered in safety, I gave up my intention of examining the cove, and hastened back to the Bay
of Good Success, to complete wood and water, and obtain rates for the chronometers, previously to leaving the coast. Wind 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 27° 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. We 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. The 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. When the tide opposes the wind and swell, there is always a heavy, and, for small vessels, dangerous 'race' off Cape San Diego, where the water is more shoal than elsewhere ([k]), 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 affected 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.W. and S.E. coast the time
gradually increases to this coast. From Cape San Diego the flood tide sets north and west along the shore, from one knot to three knots each hour, as far as twenty miles along shore; and the ebb in a contrary direction, but not so strongly, except in San Vicente Bay. The flood in the Strait of Le Maire runs about two knots in mid channel, more or less according to the wind, and the ebb about one knot an hour. Perhaps, at times, when a strong spring tide is retarded in its progress by a northerly wind, there will be a dangerous overfall off Cape San Diego, like the bores in some parts of the world.
"The soundings are tolerably regular, and may give notice of an approach to Staten Land, or to the N.E. coast, and may guide a ship to the fairway of the strait; but I should not place much confidence in them, near such a rocky coast as that of Staten Land.