[page 16]

[1802 July [Tuesday] - 27th. continued Additional Remarks on] Double-island Point, and Wide Bay

that the Lady Nelson was not with us, since she might have worked up into it, and we should have gained all the intelligence concerning the opening which was requisite to its being made useful, if a good passage into it exists at all. - Had it not been that I expected to join the brig in Herveys Bay, which the delay of a day might have prevented, I should have endeavoured to get into the opening with the ship; but to have her assistance in the way to the Bay of Inlets was a more material object to me than the examination of an opening which makes so little promise of being accessible, as this in Wide Bay. - From appearances, I judge the opening to lead into a shoal bay, probably of considerable size, but which may be probably is accessible only to small vessels. The number of natives rather implies it to be shoal, since in such places they gain much subsistence of that required from the greater quantity of fish of that kind which frequent shallow banks and shallow places, where also they are more easily taken than in deep water.