The wind still blowing fresh from the northward and westward, the ice continued to drift out slowly from the harbour, till, at eight A.M., August 1st, it had left the whole space between the ships and Cape Hearne completely clear, and at eleven o’clock there appeared to be water round the hummocks of ice which lie aground off that point.  In the mean time, our boats were employed in embarking the clocks, tents, and observatory, while I sounded the entrance of the harbour in order to complete the survey, which no opportunity had offered of doing before this time.  At one P.M., having got everything on board, and the ice appearing to be still leaving the shore, we weighed, and ran out of Winter Harbour, in which we had actually, as had been predicted, passed ten whole months, and a part of the two remaining ones, September and August.

In running along shore towards Cape Hearne, generally at the distance of half a mile from the land, we had from ten to sixteen fathoms’ water, and rounded the hummocks off the point in six and a half fathoms by three P.M.  As we opened the point, it was pleasing to see that the coast to the westward of it was more clear of ice (excepting the loose pieces which lay scattered about in every direction, but which would not very materially have impeded the navigation with a fair wind) than it had been when we first arrived off it, a month later in the foregoing year; the main ice having been blown off by the late westerly and northwesterly winds to the distance of four or five miles from the shore, which, from all we have seen on this part of the coast, appears to be its utmost limit.  The navigable channel, with a beating wind between the ice and the land, was here from one to two, or two miles and a half in width; and this seemed, from the masthead, to continue as far as the eye could reach along shore to the westward.

We found the wind much more westerly after we rounded the point, which made our progress slow and tedious; the more so, as we had every minute to luff for one piece of ice and to bear up for another, by which much ground was unavoidably lost.

After a very few tacks, we had the mortification to perceive that the Griper sailed and worked much worse than before, notwithstanding every endeavour which Lieutenant Liddon had been anxiously making, during her re-equipment, to improve those qualities in which she had been found deficient.  She missed stays several times in the course of the evening, with smooth water and a fine working breeze, and by midnight the Hecla had gained eight miles to windward of her, which obliged me to heave to, notwithstanding the increased width of the navigable channel, the weather having become hazy, so as to endanger our parting company.