It became expedient, therefore, immediately to shift the ship
round the point, where she was made fast in four fathoms abaft and
seventeen feet forward, close alongside the usual ledge of
submarine ice, which touched her about seven feet under water, and
which, having few of the heavy masses aground upon it, would
probably have allowed her to be pushed over it had a heavy
pressure occurred from without. It was the more necessary to moor
the ship in some such situation, as we found from six to seven
fathoms water by dropping the hand-lead down close to her bow and
quarter on the outer side.
Several heavy pieces of floes drove close past us, not less than
ten or fifteen feet in thickness, but they were fortunately
stopped by a point of land without coming in upon us. At eleven
o'clock, however, a mass of this kind, being about half an acre in
extent, drove in, and gave the ship a considerable "nip" between
it and the land ice, and then grazed past her to the westward. I
now directed the rudder to be unhung, and the ship to be swung
with her head to the eastward, so that the bow, being the
strongest part, might receive the first and heaviest pressure.
The ice did not disturb us again till five A.M. on the 8th, when
another floe-piece came in and gave the ship a heavy rub, and then
went past, after which it continued slack about us for several
hours.
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