We can agree to disagree. I am attempting to interpret the statements of the survivors and the captains of the ships that do not match up. If you want to label that as a re-interpretation of an interpretation, so be it.
You claimed to have found the phrase, "southeast corner", in the statements of the survivors.
I looked.
It's not there.
If you have other sources, please provide links to them.
Otherwise, it is rather a big hole in your argument.
Just because there are interpretations of "rounding the South-East corner" of the island, that interpretation does not make become an undeniable fact as you seem to be suggesting.
The person who said that was the captain of one of the rescue ships.
He was not one of the survivors of the Norwich City.
Captain: on the water.
Survivors: on land.
Captain: didn't camp at the Seven Site.
Survivors: almost certainly came nowhere near the Seven Site (cf. subject of this thread).
To suggest that a captain of a ship is unable to look at his compass to determine whether he is indeed at the Southern edge of an island is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. He was not attempting to map the island, he was simply navigation around the island.
We agree. He is on the water, not on land. He is a rescuer, not a survivor. His use of the phrase, "southeast corner" has nothing to do with the testimony of the survivors about where they went when.
The departure from the South-West side of the island seems to originate from the estimate of 1.5 miles from the NC wreck. Other than that 1.5 mile estimate, what else do you have to tie the departure area to near the Baureke Passage?
My bad. I was working from memory. It looks like the departure was from the area of
Tekebeia, probably where the reef is narrowest, and therefore easiest to cross. That area is in the lee of a westerly wind, if the storm wind was still blowing, and definitely in the lee of the prevailing winds from the north-east.
My source for the 1.5 miles is Hamer's
survivor testimony: "The two vessels now cruised along the reef in search of a suitable place, the surf near the wreck being far too dangerous. A place was found about 1 1/2 miles south of the wreck, the breakers being not quite so bad, but bad enough to make it anything but a joy ride to get over."
The 1.5 nautical mile is closer to the Norwich City and further away from the Seven Site (which is the issue in this thread).
The Seven Site is on the windward side of the island, not the lee side.
I believe this statement is incorrect. Again, you are basing that on the prevailing winds and not the winds at the time. The winds were out of the West, and possibly the North-West making the East and South-East sides of the island the lee side.
So we can leave it at that. I believe one thing and you are convinced of another.
I agree with you that "lee" is a term relative to the wind.
I am disagreeing that it tells us exactly where the crew was.
Note that "the island" is also an ambiguous term. When the seas are high, there are two islands in the atoll.
Meaning 1: Various parts of the island that are "out of the wind."

Meaning 2: the entire coastline that faces toward the Northeast.