Unfortunately, Corio Harbour, on the shores of which the town is built, is blocked up by a bar, and vessels of moderate size are obliged to remain in Geelong Bay, about five miles off, while discharging or receiving cargo.
PORT DALRYMPLE.
Five days after clearing the Heads of Port Phillip, we had crossed Bass Strait,* and anchored in Port Dalrymple, on the northern coast of Van Diemen's Land, and remained there sufficiently long to obtain rates for the chronometers, and connect it by meridian distance with William's Town, and Sydney.** The two lighthouses of Banks' Strait only now remained unvisited, that on the Kent Group, and another on Cape Otway, having been left to Lieutenant Yule.
(*Footnote.

For every information required by navigators passing through Bass Strait, I would refer to Discoveries in Australia, with an account of the Coasts and Rivers explored and surveyed during the Voyage of H.M.S.Beagle, in the years 1837 to 1843 by J.Lort Stokes, Commander, R.N., and to the Admiralty chart by Captain Stokes.

On this subject I find a manuscript note by Captain Stanley: "Stokes has mentioned in his chart that there is little or no tide in Bass Strait.

Such may be the case, but I have invariably found a very strong current, depending both as to force and direction upon the prevailing winds.

On one occasion, during a westerly gale, it set to the eastward with a velocity of at least three knots per hour.