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The Conway Bay party returned to the base at South Seymour on the afternoon of April 16th. The next day the whole expedition left for James Island, where we anchored in the early afternoon. Here, too, was much evidence of a very wet rainy season. Barring unweathered rock and lava flows, the whole island was completely green. All of my other visits had been during the drier months, and so, on this occasion, I saw for the first time the waterfall that has been reported in a gully to the eastward of James Bay. The Bay anchorage is fairly open and has at times a heavy surf on the beach. Except that it lacks a permanent water supply, the land hereabouts offers some very fine building sites.

We left James Island in the early morning hours of April 20th and anchored off Villamil, southern Albemarle, a few minutes after ten o'clock. The anchorage is a miserable one, for we encountered worse swells here than anywhere else in all the Islands. One must anchor well out from shore, and go in in a small launch or boat, because the reefs investing the landing are particularly bad. Fortunately, Señor Bolivar Gil came out to guide us in. Captain Picking had been directed to bring out an American survey party of four that had spent the past three months on this island, Messrs. Irvine, Douglas, Harms, and Palmer. (Chart of the Villamil landing possessed by this party was made available to us; copy appended.)

From Villamil we moved around to "Foster Cove", Elizabeth Bay, southern Albemarle, where the night was spent. Very early the next morning, April 21st, we moved up to Tagus Cove. Here we spent the day and the following night before getting underway for Cocos Island.

Through the kindness of Captain Picking, it was possible to make a circuit of Culpepper Island, the most northerly of the Galapagos group. Having long been interested in this island, I was now enabled to have my first close-up view of it. Its upper levels have never been trodden by man and so remain a virgin collecting field, the only one in all the archipelago. To get up on this island would require special equipment, particularly scaffolding as on almost every side the bare, almost perpendicular cliffs run up several hundred feet or more. 

We raised Cocos in the early morning of April 24th. Before anchoring in Chatham Bay, the island was circumnavigated. For the first time in several visits to Cocos Island did I see any of the reputedly heavy rains, and I can now attest that they do come down with full tropical intensity, though they are of comparatively short duration. On our last day at Cocos, Saturday, April 26th, accompanied by Lt. Ralph Ernest, Civil Engineer, U.S.N., I took advantage of the opportunity to obtain additional seeds of the rare [[underlined]] Rooseveltia [[/underlined]] palm from one of a stand of the trees from the heights above Chatham Bay.

No time was lost on the run back to Balboa, where we arrived at seven o'clock the morning of the 30th. Here Captain Picking and I had a conference with Admiral F. H. Sadler, which should be considered as confidential.