about noon
When about three leagues from the crater , the ` Hope Channel , ' as Mark named this long and direct passage , divided into two , one trending still more to the northward , running nearly due north , indeed , while the other might be followed in a south-easterly direction , far as the eye could reach . Mark named the rock at the junction ` Point Fork , ' and chose the latter passage , which appeared the most promising , and the wind permitting him to lay through it . The Bridget tacked in the Forks , therefore , and stood away to the south-east , pretty close to the wind . Various other channels communicated with this main passage , or the Hope ; and , about noon , Mark tacked into one of them , heading about north-east , when trimmed up sharp to do so . The water was deep , and at first the passage was half a mile in width ; but after standing along it for a mile or two , it seemed all at once to terminate in an oval basin , that might have been a mile in its largest diameter , and which was bounded to the eastward by a belt of rock that rose some twenty feet above the water . The bottom of this basin was a clear beautiful sand , and its depth of water , on sounding , Mark found was uniformly about eight fathoms . A more safe or convenient basin for the anchorage of ships could not have been formed by the art of man , had there been an entrance to it , and any inducement for them to come there .