a good deal of surf and the land
lay so far back that I concluded at least a deep bight must be
there--this proved true, as we rounded it the swell of the sea which
before was high greatly took off and although the wind blew hard yet as
it was off shore...lowered the boat and sent Mr. Bowen and two good hands
in her on shore...At half-past 11 the weather looking worse instead of
better made a signal for our boat which they noticed and came off--by
noon they got on board, and Mr. Bowen reported that wood and excellent
water was in abundance, that safe anchorage and good ground was close
into the beach--the soil is middling good, in short, it is an excellent
place to take shelter in from all worst winds that blow in this
country...Latitude of this bight is 40 degrees 00 minutes 09 seconds
south and Longitude 143 degrees 57 minutes 45 seconds east.

"Monday, 11th January. Running along shore at a distance of 4 miles at 1
P.M. Saw a rock bearing west distant 10 miles and a low point
north-north-west 9 or 10 miles--as we run down, this point still making
out made us begin to think that we should here find a bay or harbour. By
2 P.M. we completely opened it and saw it was a bay of large extent and
fine shelter...where we came to anchor. Found the tide of flood running
to the Westward nearly done (4 P.M.)--the different parts of the bay bore
as follows: Elephant Rock* (* (Note in log.) So named from resemblance to
that animal.) north by east distant at 5 miles north part of the bay
north 1/2 west distant 6 miles--the bottom of bay west-north-west 2 1/2
miles distant and the south point of ditto south-south-east, or 4 miles.
I now went on shore, found a good deal of surf on the beach till we got
on the southern side...here we landed and the first thing we saw was a
number of sea elephants* (* The Phoca proboscidea of Peron.) of an
immense size lying asleep on the beach, each of them, Barnes the
boatswain's mate told me, would make 8 or 9 barrels of oil; as we rowed
down the shore we took them to be bluish rocks. We found along this beach
two freshwater lagoons full of those animals which made it taste
brackish...We could not get near the upper part of them on account of the
number of elephants playing in them both. I named the bay Elephant Bay
from this circumstance.

"Tuesday, 12th January. Boat returned on board, they caught 4 badgers and
saw several kangaroos, but were not able to get any from the thickness of
the brush--t