29th August 1832

First Cruise
The morning was thick with rain: but in the afternoon in spite of the remaining swell, some miles of the coast were traced. At night the weather looked dirty & we have stood out to sea.

This day last year, I arrived home from North Wales & first heard of this Voyage. During the week it has often struck me how different was my situation & views then to what they are at present: it is amusing to imagine my surprise, if anybody on the mountains of Wales had whispered to me, this day next year you will be beating off the coast of Patagonia: and yet how common & natural an occurrence it now appears to me. Nothing has made so vivid an impression on my mind as those days of painful uncertainty: the clearness with which I recollect the most minute particulars, gives to the period of an year the appearance of far shorter duration. But if I pause & in my mind pass from month to month, the time fully grows proportional to the many things which have happened in it.

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[Image: JMW Turner's "Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore"]