Inner North and
South Heads, is a little more than eight hundred yards, so that there is
abundance of room to work in should the wind blow out of the Port. On
arriving off the lighthouse, steer in between the North and South Heads
until you are past the line of bearing of the Outer North, and the Inner
South Heads: then haul round the latter, but avoid a reef of rocks that
extends for two hundred yards off the point, and steer for Middle Head, a
projecting cliff at the bottom of the bay, until the harbour opens round
the Inner South Head; you may then pass on either side of the Sow and
Pigs; but the eastern channel, although the narrowest, is perhaps the
best; but this, in a great measure, depends upon the direction of the
wind. The eastern channel is the deepest. The Sow and Pigs, or Middle
Ground, is the only danger in Port Jackson: it is a bank of sand and
rocks, of about eight hundred yards in length, by about three hundred and
fifty in breadth: its length being in the direction of the harbour; a
very small portion of it is dry, and consists of a few rocks, upon which
the sea almost always breaks; they are situated upon the outer end of the
shoal, and are in the line of bearing of the Outer North and the Inner
South Heads. The south-western tail of the bank is chiefly of sand, with
rocks scattered about it; but, on the greater portion of it, there is
twelve feet water; it gradually deepens to three and a quarter fathoms,
which is beyond the rocky limits of the shoal. To sail through the
Western Channel, which is from one-third to half a mile wide, steer
towards George's Head, a high rocky head, about three quarters of a mile
above Middle Head, keeping it in sight upon the larboard bow, and the sea
horizon open between the points of entrance, until you are within the
line of bearing between a small sandy beach on the western shore and
Green Point; the latter is a grassy mound, the south head of Camp Cove.
Then steer for George's Head, and gradually round it: when you have
passed the line of bearing between it and Green Point, and opened the
sandy beach of Watson's Bay, steer boldly up the harbour. In rounding
Point Bradley, there is a rocky shelf that runs off the point for perhaps
one hundred yards. Pass on either side of Pinch-gut Island, and, in
hauling into Sydney Cove, avoid a rocky reef that extends off Point
Bennelong for rather more than two hundred yards into the sea.
To sail through the Eastern Channel, or
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