The anchor had been cast under the lee of a range of cliffs, but the situation was insecure, so that Bass and Flinders considered it prudent to haul up the stone and run before the wind.

The night was dark, the wind burst in a gale, and the adventurers had no knowledge of any place of security to which they could run.

The frowning cliffs above them and the smashing of the surf on the rocks, were their guide in steering a course parallel with the coast.
Bass held the sheet, Flinders steered with an oar, and the boy bailed out the water which the hissing crests of wind-lashed waves flung into the boat.

"It required the utmost exertion to prevent broaching to; a single wrong movement or a moment's inattention would have sent us to the bottom." They drove along for an hour in this precarious situation, hoping for an opening to reveal itself into which they could run for shelter.

At last, Flinders, straining his eyes in the darkness, distinguished right ahead some high breakers, behind which there appeared to be no shade of cliffs.
So extremely perilous was their position at this time, with the water increasing despite the efforts of the boy, that Flinders, an unusually placid and matter-of-fact writer when dealing with dangers of the sea, declares that they could not have lived ten minutes longer.