About five in the
afternoon
The idea of remaining out in the open sea for the night , and to windward of such an inhospitable coast , was anything but pleasant to Mark , and he determined to stand to the northward , now , while it was day , and look for some other entrance . For four hours did Mark Woolston run along those dark rocks , whitened only by the spray of the wide ocean , without perceiving a point at which a boat might even land . As he was now running off the wind , and had turned out his reef , he supposed he must have gone at least five-and-twenty miles , if not thirty , in that time ; and thus had he some means of judging of the extent of his new territories . About five in the afternoon a cape , or headland , was reached , when the coast suddenly trended to the westward . This , then , was the north-eastern angle of the entire formation , and Mark named it Cape North-East . The boat was now jibed , and ran off west , a little northerly , for another hour , keeping quite close in to the coast , which was no longer dangerous as soon as the Cape was doubled . The seas broke upon the rocks , as a matter of course ; but there being a lee , it was only under the power of the ceaseless undulations of the ocean .