27th December 1833

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
While the Liebre was absent, Mr. Stokes, in the Paz, surveyed many miles of the river, as well as the bar. No vessel drawing more than eleven feet water can enter without much danger: if at a favourable time any person should be induced to risk crossing the bar with a ship of greater draught, he should bear in mind that it is much more difficult to get to sea than it is to enter, because wind which is fair for approaching, raises the water; and the reverse. Although ships drawing fourteen feet have passed the bar, at unusually favourable times, others of only ten feet draught have been detained forty days in the river.