affords protection from that quarter, has only 1½ fathoms water on its crest To the North of this, Owen's Anchorage has 4 fathoms water close to the shore, but this is again covered to the North by Success bank, which, however, has a channel between it and the Stragglers to the West, with 3¼ fathoms. The entrances between the reefs into these anchorages from the sea are narrow, tortuous, and difficult, which makes them at present inaccessible to large vessels in bad weather. The entrance between Garden Island and John's point is barred by the South flats, with only about 1½ fathoms water on the crest. The North channel has been recommended by the Admiralty Surveyor as affording entrance to the largest vessels, if properly lighted and buoyed, and with the removal of one rock. The Challenger Passage, however, he entirely condemns. Owen's Anchorage and Cockburn Sound are, however, resorted to by vessels drawing 16 feet when detained during winter months at Fremantle; the latter, besides its extensive area of some 28 square miles, with from 9 to 12 fathoms water, having the snug anchorage of Careening Cove, at the South-East point of Garden Island, three-quarters of a mile in width, and with five fathoms close to the North shore; and Mangles Bay to the South, one mile and a half broad, with seven fathoms within less than half a cable's length of the shore.
Between Rottnest and the main are Gage's Roads, but the reefs which extend to the North from Carnac on the line to Rottnest, limit their breadth to five miles from thence to the shoal water on the coast; they are from 9 to 13 fathoms deep, and are a safe anchorage for vessels, excepting, possibly, in very strong gales from the North, and, with the sounds and harbors to the South, naturally appertain to the embouchure of the Swan.
