On
going to the masthead, shortly after the boats had been
despatched, I found that the bight of ice in which the ships were
lying was not one floe, but formed by the close junction of two,
so that our situation was by no means so secure as I had supposed
for this bight was so far from being a protection to us, in case
of ice driving on shore, that it would probably be the means of
"nipping" us between the floes which formed it. I therefore
determined on immediately removing the ships in-shore, and went in
a boat to look out for a place for that purpose, there being no
alternative between this and our returning some distance to the
eastward, into the larger space of clear water which we had there
left behind us. I found that a heavy piece of ice aground in
twelve fathoms, at the distance of three hundred yards from the
beach, would suit our purpose for the Hecla, and another, in ten
fathoms, still nearer in-shore, was selected for the Griper. These
masses were from twenty to thirty feet above the sea, and each
about the length of the respective ships.
At four P.M., the weather being quite calm, the ships were towed
in-shore by the boats, and made fast in the places selected for
them.
Impatient and anxious as we were to make the most of the short
remainder of the present season, our mortification will easily be
imagined at perceiving, on the morning of the 9th, not only that
the ice was as close as ever to the westward, but that the floes
in our immediate neighbourhood were sensibly approaching the
shore.
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