The Young Pilot was immediately hauled on a wind, and we crossed the Caribbean Sea with a fine breeze, and one morning beheld the Rocas, a cluster of barren rocks, right ahead.

We passed over a bank extending from this group of rocks, and with a fishing-line trailing astern and a piece of the rind of pork for bait, caught a quantity of Spanish mackerel, a fish of excellent flavor, weighing four or five pounds each.
And I will here state, for the benefit of those navigators who have little experience in those seas, that on the edge of soundings in all parts of the West Indies, and particularly on the edges of the Bahamas and Salt Key Bank, abundance of fish of excellent quality, as black perch, kingfish, barracooter, and Spanish mackerel, may be taken by trailing during a breeze, in any reasonable quantity.
By steering a course directly from the Rocas to LaGuayra we could have reached that port on the following day, but Captain Moncrieff was impressed with the idea that a strong current was setting to the westward.

Therefore, instead of proceeding directly to the Spanish Main, as he should have done, he commenced beating to windward, and continued this absurd process for two days, when, having made the island of Tortuga, he satisfied himself he was far enough to windward, and that there was no current at that time in those seas.

The helm was accordingly put up, and with a free wind we now steered to the south-west, to fall in with the coast somewhere near Cape Codera.
We made the land about fifty miles to windward of LaGuayra, in the afternoon, about three o'clock.

Captain Moncrieff clapped his hands in ecstasy when he saw the land.