As soon as the fog cleared away,
so as to enable us to see a mile or two around us, we found that
the floe to which we had anchored was drifting fast down upon
another body of ice to leeward, threatening to enclose the ships
between them. We therefore cast off and made sail, in order to
beat to the northward, which we found great difficulty in doing,
owing to the quantity of loose ice with which this part of the
inlet was now covered. A remarkably thick fog obscured the eastern
land from our view this evening at the distance of five or six
miles, while the western coast was distinctly visible at four
times that distance.
The weather was beautifully calm and clear on the 13th, when,
being near an opening in the eastern shore, I took the opportunity
of examining it in a boat. It proved to be a bay, a mile wide at
its entrance, and three miles deep in an E.b.S. direction, having
a small but snug cove on the north side, formed by an island,
between which and the main land is a bar of rocks, which
completely shelters the cove from sea or drift ice. We found the
water so deep, that in rowing close along the shore we could
seldom get bottom with seven fathoms of line. The cliffs on the
south side of this bay, to which I gave the name of PORT BOWEN,
resemble, in many places, ruined towers and battlements; and
fragments of the rocks were constantly falling from above.
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