Tagebuch Port Lincoln
September 1840 – Januar 1845
December 13th, 1840.
The wind blew favorably in the morning, but in the afternoon it turned against us and the sea was so high that it was considered advisable to anchor. At Smith's suggestion we anchored under Mount Young(092) first, but the Dr. Harvey fancied that the water was not deep enough for his mighty ship, to which he always tried to make a grand appearance, and insisted on going back to the bay north of Lowley Point, over twenty miles from where we were. A raging wind took us there in a few hours, and we were already looking forward to the carefree night that lay ahead of us again, when Dr. Harvey said he saw a safe bay with a ( 054 ) river, and sent his Frenchman up to the mast and suggested anchoring there. I couldn't look around because of my bad hand, but I found [myself] very disappointed when we were anchored and the bay seemed very open to me. We had barely been there an hour when the tide came in and waves as high as a yard rolled into the bay with terrible violence and threatened to smash our ship. Now everyone, even the stubborn Frenchman, saw that we were in a bad anchorage and an attempt was made to set sail again for the oft-mentioned bay, which was not more than two miles away. We raised the anchor and raised the sails, but the waves and the headwind only drove us inland instead of out of the bay, so we let the anchor go again and patiently awaited our fate. At first everyone except me wanted to stay on board, but soon the waves became so terrible that everyone except W. Smith wanted to go ashore. Accordingly we packed some of the provisions and other things into the dinghi, lowered two barrels of water into the sea, and then, apart from Smith, who wanted to swim, we went into the dinghi ourselves. We were barely three steps away from the ship when a powerful ( 055 ) wave foamed up behind us and filled the dinghi with water, and the second one, which came close behind, completely overturned us. Luckily we were just far enough to be able to touch the ground with our feet, otherwise my life might have been in danger, because everyone had so much to do with themselves that they might not have paid attention to me right away, and I can't swim a foot myself. We now waded ashore, gathered up the things from the boat as the sea gradually washed them onto the shore, and went to sleep with half-wet clothes, miserable suppers spoiled by salt water, and with many worries. In addition, I had a terrible pain in my left hand, which was already sore, but due to the salt water and the lack of fresh bread that I could have put on it, it turned into a widespread and very painful inflammation.

December 14th and 15th, 1840.
The wind remained unfavorable, and the sea was so high that it was impossible to attempt to get out of the bay, except that the Frenchman went on board once or twice, ( 056 ) and, to cheer up our low hope of ever getting into the open sea again, brought the news that the ship was still in good condition. We were pretty much prepared for the fact that we would have to make our return journey on foot overland. Plans had already been made as to what and how much everyone should carry and almost no one was bold enough to hope that we would be able to travel by ship.

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