During a month of buffeting against adverse seas, they were driven apart and lost sight of one another.
Cartier in the Grande Hermine reached the coast of Newfoundland safely on July coming again to the Island of Birds.

'So full of birds it was,' he writes, 'that all the ships of France might be loaded with them, and yet it would not seem that any were taken away.' On the next day the Grande Hermine sailed on through the Strait of Belle Isle for Blanc Sablon, and there, by agreement, waited in the hope that her consorts might arrive.

In the end, on the 26th, the two missing ships sailed into the harbour together.

Three days more were spent in making necessary repairs and in obtaining water and other supplies, and on the 29th at sunrise the reunited expedition set out on its exploration of the northern shore.

During the first half of August their way lay over the course already traversed from the Strait of Belle Isle to the western end of Anticosti.