For the next ten days Mark Woolston did little but explore. By crossing the channel around the Reef, which he had named the 'Armlet' (the young man often talked to himself), he reached the sea-wall, and, once there, he made a long excursion to the eastward. He now walked dryshod over those very reefs among which he had so recently sailed in the Bridget, though the ship-channel through which he and Bob had brought in the Rancocus still remained. The two buoys that had marked the narrow passage were found, high and dry; and the anchor of the ship, that by which she rode after beating over the rocks into deep water, was to be seen so near the surface, that the stock could be reached by the hand.
There was little difference in character between the newly-made land to windward and that which Mark had found in the opposite direction. Large pools, or lakes, of salt water, deposits of mud and sand, some of which were of considerable extent and thickness, sounds, creeks, and arms of the sea, with here and there a hummock of rock that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the face of the main body, were the distinguishing peculiarities. For two days Mark explored in this direction, or to windward, reaching as far by his estimate of the distance, as the place where he had bore up in his cruise in the Bridget. Finding a great many obstacles in the way, channels, mud, &c., he determined, on the afternoon of the second day, to return home, get a stock of supplies, and come out in the boat, in order to ascertain if he could not now reach the open water to windward.
On the morning of the fourth day after the earthquake, and the occurrence of the mighty change that had altered the whole face of the scene around him, the young man got under way in the Bridget. He shaped his course to windward, beating out of the Armlet by a narrow passage, that carried him into a reach that stretched away for several miles, to the northward and eastward, in nearly a straight line. This passage, or sound, was about half a mile in width, and there was water enough in nearly all parts of it to float the largest sized vessel. By this passage the poor hermit, small as was his chance of ever seeing such an event occur, hoped it might be possible to come to the very side of the Reef in a ship.