At fifteen minutes past three P.M. on the 30th, a light air of wind springing up from the eastward, we weighed, and, having warped out by kedges till we had cleared the shoal-point of the cove, made sail for the channel, and, with the assistance of the boats, got the Fury into the fair set of the tide before it made very strong to the eastward.  At a quarter before seven, when in the narrowest part, which is abreast of a bold headland on the south shore, where the tide was now driving the ice along at the rate of five or six knots, the wind came in a sudden gust from the southwest, scarcely allowing us to reduce and trim our sails in time to keep the ship off the north shore, which is not so safe as the other.  By carrying a heavy press of canvass, however, we succeeded in forcing through the ice, but the Fury was twice turned completely round by eddies, and her sails brought aback against the helm; in consequence of which she gathered such fresh sternway against several heavy floe-pieces, that I apprehended some serious injury to the stern-post and rudder, if not to the whole frame of the ship.  The Hecla got through the narrows soon after us; but Captain Lyon, wishing to bring away the flags and staves set up as marks, had sent his little boat away for that purpose during the continuance of the calm weather.  When the breeze suddenly came on she was still absent, and, being obliged to wait for some time to pick her up, the Hecla was about dusk separated several miles from us.

I was sorry to perceive, on the morning of the 1st of September, that the appearance of the ice was by no means favourable to our object of sailing to the northward, along the Sturges Bourne Islands; but at ten A.M., the edge being rather more slack, we made all sail, with a very light air of southerly wind, and the weather clear, warm, and pleasant.  We were at noon in lat. 66 deg. 03’ 35”, and in long. 83 deg. 33’ 15”, in which situation a great deal of land was in sight to the northward, though apparently much broken in some places.  From N.E. round to S.S.E. there was still nothing to be seen but one wide sea uninterruptedly covered with ice as far as the eye could reach.

At forty-five minutes past one P.M. we had come to the end of the clear water, and prepared to shorten sail, to await some alteration in our favour.  At this time the weather was so warm that we had just exposed a thermometer to the sun to ascertain the temperature of its rays, which could not have been less than 70 deg. or 80 deg., when a thick fog, which had for some hours been curling over the hills of Vansittart Island, suddenly came on, creating so immediate and extreme a change, that I do not remember to have ever experienced a more chilling sensation.  As we could no longer see a hundred yards around us in any direction, nothing was to be done but to make the ships fast to the largest piece of ice we could find, which we accordingly did at two P.M., in one hundred and fifty-eight fathoms.  Just before dark the fog cleared away for a few minutes, when, perceiving that the wind, which was now increasing, was likely to drift us too near the islands, we took advantage of the clear interval to run a mile farther from the land for the night, where we again made fast to a large floe-piece in two hundred fathoms.