Encounter Bay

“ It has two outlets and lies north, a little easterly, distant 34 miles from the south-easternmost island, or point, seen from Adventure Bay.
Adventure Bay is a convenient and safe place for any number of ships to take in wood and water during the summer months: but in the winter, when the southerly winds are strong, the surf, on all parts of the shore, makes the landing exceedingly troublesome. ”

“ We have been driving across a narrow mainland, from the ocean to the ocean, and before us, gleaming softly in the evening sunlight, is the beautiful Bay of Conception. The surrounding cliffs are quite purple, the ocean is a golden sea broken up by green islands. Far below us is a cluster of houses, a fishing settlement, with a lobster factory and some flakes run out over the rocks. There are boats idly rocking at the quay, whilst others are catching bait for a fishing schooner, lying at anchor in the bay. ”

“ Sailing thence to the southward towards the large island, we discovered a very large bay, well peopled, and very fertile in yams and fruits, hogs and fowls. They are all black people and naked. They fight with bows, darts and clubs. They did not choose to have peace with us, though we frequently spoke to them and made presents; and they never, with their goodwill, let us set foot on shore.
This bay is very refreshing, and in it fall many and large rivers. It is in 15 2/3° S. latitude, and in circuit it is twenty-five leagues. ”

“ We anchored on the north shore, off a sandy bay, which I think as good a birth as any in the bay; Cape Banks bore east-south-east, and Point Solander south-south-east, the ground clear and good. The wind, either from the north-east or south-east quarters, set in a prodigious sea. Higher up the bay there is a spot of four fathoms, where a few ships might be laid in tolerable security, but they must be lightened, to enable them to pass over a flat of twelve feet, and that depth but of narrow limits. ”

“ The northern face of the Sá Leone peninsula is fretted with little creeks and inlets, bights and lagoons, which were charming in a state of nature. Pirate's Bay, the second after the lighthouse, is a fairy scene under a fine sky; with its truly African tricolor, its blue waters reflecting air, its dwarf cliffs of laterite bespread with vivid leek-green, and its arc of golden yellow sand, upon which the feathery tops of the cocoa-palms look like pins planted in the ground. To the travelled man the view suggests many a nook in the Pacific islands. ”

“ From Saint Just's Church-town, the road conducts us over a wild part of the peninsula, although highly salubrious, and invigorating from the fine sea breezes which blow from every side; after a ride over such bleak and barren hills, the eye experiences a singular repose on our approach to the cultivated shores of the Mount's Bay. ”

“ Running into this is merely a brook not deep enough for boats except at full tide. The circuit of the bay is about a league. On one side of the entrance to this bay there is a point which is almost an island, covered with wood, principally pines, and adjoins sand-banks, which are very extensive. On the other side, the land is high. There are two islets in this bay, which are not seen until one has entered, and around which it is almost entirely dry at low tide. This place is very conspicuous from the sea, for the coast is very low, excepting the cape at the entrance to the bay. ”

“ The Bay is about ninety miles long, but differs much in its breadth; being in some places only fifteen miles, in others from twenty to thirty. It lies nearly from north-east to south-west. At the entrance of it from the Lake are a string of islands, extending from north to south, called the Grand Traverse. These are about thirty miles in length, and serve to facilitate the passage of canoes, as they shelter them from the winds, which sometimes come with violence across the Lake. On the side that lies to the south-east is the nearest and best navigation. ”

“ Passing from the ultramarine deeps of the Rubicon Point, we round a sharply jutting promontory and glide into the jade-green waters of Emerald Bay, a long, oval-shaped inlet at the southern end of the lake. Surely, it is rightly named, for here green predominates, from the steep sides of the encircling hills to the very center of the shallow bay. At the upper end of the bay, rising almost sheer from the green water, is a rocky, scantily-wooded island where for many years an eccentric Englishman made his home. ”

“ Anyone who went upon the Bay at all was likely to land at the Beach. Once there, it was a natural impulse to go across and walk along the ocean side; for, at that time, early in 16 the thirties, it was widely believed that the sea had wealth, and often threw it up upon the shore. Never, however, was it in the least surmised by the Captain’s neighbors that these solitary excursions had woven themselves in as a part of the texture of his life. ”

“ LTHOUGH situated directly on the Alaskan coastal highway, with a constant stream of large freight and passenger steamers calling at the cannery pier or dropping anchor in its fine harbour, Alert Bay is a spot haunted by the spirit of the untamed, full of those powerful undercurrents that thrive on the edge of the wilderness. ”

“ Along the east and north part of the bay there is a long reef that makes at a short distance from the shore, upon which a heavy surf is always breaking. In entering the bay, the whole habitable part of this section of the island is presented at one view, and forms a most grand and beautiful landscape. It is nearly semi-circular, and rises like an amphitheatre, in fruitful and populous circular ranges of hills, until at the distance of several miles, it terminates in a circumference of high and gloomy mountains, the tops of which resemble a massive wall. ”

“ They anchored at nine o'clock in eight fathoms water, over a soft bottom, Point Venus bearing north-north-east, and One Tree Hill south by east, half east, distant from shore about half a mile. On approaching the bay, they could perceive a prodigious number of the natives on Point Venus, and round the beach, and several canoes put off from the shore, the Indians waving pieces of white cloth and making signs for them to come into the bay. ”

“ If we pursue the coast, and, turning round the western extremity of our island, trace its outline as it proceeds northerly, and then easterly to the Bay of St. Ives, a very different country presents itself; instead of the undulating curves, and luxuriant herbage of the southern shores, the land is generally high,—the vallies short, narrow, and quick of descent, and the whole landscape affords a scene of incomparable cheerlessness ”

“ What is required, they say, is communication and the presence of a community.
Big Bay, which we first entered, misled by the haze along the shore, although it appears on the chart as a mere indentation of the coast-line, compared with the magnificent harbours to the southward, is a fine crescent bay of considerable depth, and with a long-extending shelter on its north side, consisting of a line of table land, terminating in a low spit and a reef of rocks. It is possible for a mistake to be made as to the identity of the two bays, going by the chart of the mere coast-line ”

“ The best Anchoring is on the Eastern side of the Bay in 16 or 14 fathoms of water, owsey bottom. The Shore of the bay is all a fine sandy beach, behind which runs a river of Fresh Water, so that any Number of Ships might Water here without discommoding one another. The only wood for fuel upon the whole Island is fruit Trees, and these must be purchased of the Natives, if you mean to keep on good Terms with them. ”

“ There is no water nearer to this anchorage than in the sandy bay above mentioned, but the distance is trifling for a ship that can send boats with men enough to protect themselves while employed in filling the casks, for notwithstanding the friendly communication we have had with the inhabitants of this sound, they are not to be trusted, unless their character is different from the rest of their countrymen that we have seen. ”

“ Even from the Atlantic side we overlooked the Bay, and saw to Manomet Point in Plymouth, and better from that side because it was the highest. The almost universal bareness and smoothness of the landscape were as agreeable as novel, making it so much the more like the deck of a vessel. We saw vessels sailing south into the Bay, on the one hand, and north along the Atlantic shore, on the other, all with an aft wind. ”

“ As it was necessary to give the horses a few days' rest previous to swimming them off to the ship, I started this morning in the life-boat, accompanied by Captain Dixon and Messrs. Brown, Harding, and Walcott, to examine the eastern shores of the bay, for the purpose of ascertaining whether a more suitable spot for a landing place and site for a future town could be found in that quarter. Leaving the Dolphin at 5.30 a.m., we ran to the eastward with a light south wind, passing, at six miles, two small islands in the mouth of the small bay into which the Nickol River discharges itself. ”

“ Not a ripple disturbed the placid and glassy surface of the magnificent bay and harbour, upon which rested at anchor thirty large vessels, consisting of whalemen, merchantmen, and the U.S. sloop-of-war Portsmouth, Captain Montgomery. Besides these, there were numerous small craft, giving to the harbour a commercial air, of which some of the large cities on the Atlantic coast would feel vain. The bay, from the town of San Francisco due east, is about twelve miles in breadth. An elevated range of hills bounds the view on the opposite side. ”

“ But we touched in Queen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not make four knots an hour on the wind;—and this was the ship I was to get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion! ”

“ At high tide the surface of the Bay is unbroken by rock or shoal, and stretches glittering in the sunlight from the beach at one’s feet to where the New Brunswick shore is just visible, appearing like a low bluish cloud on the horizon. At times the opposite shore is apparently brought nearer and made more distinct by a mirage, which inverts it, together with any ships which are in sight. A brig may be seen sailing along keel upward, in the most matter-of-fact way. ”

“ Fronting us was the long island called by the same name as the bay beyond it, and towering far above were the mountains of the mainland, cleft in two places where the Harmony and Batchawaung Rivers had broken their way to the lake; to the right extended the bay for many miles, and to the left stretched in its immensity the trackless “Gitche-Gumee, Big-Sea-Water.” Darkness approaches slowly in northern latitudes; our oarsmen were weary, and our pace was moderate, but we had to make a long detour to reach the river beyond, and it was determined to camp on the island. ”

“ There are dogs upon this island two feet high, with sharp ears.
Having seen several rings and buttons upon the natives, we concluded that they must have had some communication with the Indians in the Streights of Magellan; but they appeared to be unacquainted with Europeans.
The Bay of Good Success is about three miles in extent, from east to west; two miles in breadth; is defended from east winds by Staten-land, Near the shore it is very foul, and full of rocks; abounding with great quantities of sea weed. ”

“ As the bay last described, or Cumberland Bay, is by far the most commodious road in the island, so it is adviseable for all ships to anchor on the western side of this bay, within little more than two cables' lengths of the beach. Here they may ride in forty fathom of water, and be, in a great measure, sheltered from a large heavy sea which comes rolling in whenever an eastern or a western wind blows. ”

“ The Bay of Success is discovered immediately upon entring the Strait from the Northward; there is likewise a good Land Mark near the South head to know it by, which is a Mark on the land like a lane or broad road leading up from the Sea into the Country; this Bay is 1/2 a League Wide at the Entrance, and lies in West 2 1/2 Miles, and hath good Anchorage in every part of it, in 10, 8, and 7 fathoms clear ground, and affords plenty of exceeding good Wood and Water. The Wood is of the Birch kind, but of a diffrent Quality to that in England or North America ”

“ The journey to the bay by stage requires two days, with a stop at Camp Stranahan, on New River. You will obtain more fun, though, if you take the schooner at Lake Worth and sail down the Atlantic, a distance of eighty miles. Going south the boat hugs the shore to avoid the northward flow of the Gulf Stream. During the autumn the band at the Royal Poinciana Hotel, at Palm Beach, can be plainly heard. The freight and passenger boats that run between the lake and the bay generally use Bear Cut entrance to the bay. ”

“ In the Night time, or in foggy Weather, Ships ought to place no great Dependance on the Soundings in Fortune Bay, least they may be deceived thereby, for you have more Water in many Parts near the Shore, and in several of its contained Bays and Harbours, than in the middle of the Bay itself. ”