Monday Oct 12th The squalls last night were the forerunner of a hurricane which came on at daybreak and lasted all day. The mate says that why we have had such rough weather yesterday and today was because Jupiter was so near the moon.
Thursday Oct 15th The gale died away this afternoon, but left an awfully heavy sea running; great green seas came aboard of her every 2 minutes Lat 43.21 Long 36.15
Friday Oct 16th The sea has completely gone down and we have got a steady breeze with splendid bright weather.
Saturday Oct 17th The breeze has gone ahead a couple of points & has driven us 2 pts out of our course.
Sunday Oct 18th The breeze is still gone ahead & we are now steering E when we want to go N.E x N � N. However, we are still having splendid warm weather, (not too warm but just warm enough) & plenty of sunshine.
Lat 39.22S Long 32.31
Monday Oct 19th We are just about to catch the N.E. trade winds. Several black fish have been about the ship all day.
No Entries are made in the Diary for this period
Dec 6th We have arrived off the Bay of Biscay It has been a dead calm all day. The sky has (been) perfectly black and heavy-looking this afternoon. At 10 - 20 p.m. we had no steerage way at all. In consequence of this the 2nd mate (whose watch it was on deck) woke the skipper up, and when he came on deck he gave orders to furl every sail except the 3 lower tops�ls and to set the storm trys�l. Up to this time we had had every sail set in order to catch the least catspaw. It seemed (to the uninitiated) a very curious order to furl all sail, when there was not even a cats-paw blowing. But the captain was right as usual for at 11-45 a storm commenced and was very heavy.
Dec 7th The wind increased to a hurricane. About 8 a.m. we saw a vessel to leeward carrying a spread of canvass. The Captain remarked that if they did not shorten sail at once the storm would very soon shorten it for them. We very soon lost sight of her as it came on very thick. We hove to at 9.15 a.m.
Dec 8th The hurricane increased so much as to force us to take in our 3 lower topsails, and set the storm fore-topmast staysails. We then got a couple of tackles aft and locked the wheel as the quartermaster could not control it owing to the heavy seas. At 9.30 p.m. a P&O mail steamer passed us outward bound. We were still hove to, the wind being dead ahead of us at N.E x E. The watch at night time had to remain on the poop the whole time as it was not to be on the deck owing to the heavy seas aboard of her every minute.
Dec 9th The wind having shifted E.S.E. and the wind having gone down a little wwe wore ship and set our 3 lower & upper topsails, mainsail & fores�l and began to beat up for the Channel.
Dec 11th We began to feel the choppy sea peculiar to the English Channel. At 11.25 we sight the 3 Gaskets light on the French Coast.
Dec 12th We have got well into the Channel, but owing to the fog the Captain could not take the bearings at noon, so we had (to) use the deep sea line for the 1st time and very cold work it was too, handling the wet line.
Dec 13th At 12.30a.m. we passed a steamer and signalled to her for latitude and longitude, which she gave us. The Captain said he thought we were much nearer the French coast. At 9.20 a.m. we saw the Beachy Head lights. At9.35 a.m. we saw the lights of a steamer on our port quarter making straight for us. She came unpleasantly close to us, so the second mate ( W. Gratton) called the skipper up, who sung out to port their helmor they would run us down. A reply came from her �Ay Ay Sir�, and round she swung right alongside of us. She proved to be a tug who wanted to tow us up the channel and the river to our docks. The Captain closed with the master of the tug and she sent her tow pole aboard of us and away we went.
