We fell in with several large islands on the 14th, and about noon, with a quantity of loose ice, through which we sailed.  Latitude 64 deg. 55’ south, longitude 163 deg. 20’ west.  Grey albatrosses, blue peterels, pintadoes, and fulmers, were seen.  As we advanced to the S.E. by E. with a fresh gale at west, we found the number of ice islands increase fast upon us.  Between noon and eight in the evening we saw but two; but before four o’clock in the morning of the 15th, we had passed seventeen, besides a quantity of loose ice which we ran through.  At six o’clock, we were obliged to haul to the N.E., in order to clear an immense field that lay to the south and S. E. The ice, in most part of it, lay close packed together; in other places, there appeared partitions in the field, and a clear sea beyond it.  However, I did not think it safe to venture through, as the wind would not permit us to return the same way that we must go in.  Besides, as it blew strong, and the weather at times was exceedingly foggy, it was the more necessary for us to get clear of this loose ice, which is rather more dangerous than the great islands.  It was not such ice as is usually found in bays or rivers and near shore; but such as breaks off from the islands, and may not improperly be called parings of the large pieces, or the rubbish or fragments which fall off when the great islands break loose from the place where they are formed.

We had not stood long to the N.E. before we found ourselves embayed by the ice, and were obliged to tack and stretch to the S.W., having the field, or loose ice, to the south, and many huge islands to the north.  After standing two hours on this tack, the wind very luckily veering to the westward, we tacked, stretched to the north, and soon got clear of the loose ice; but not before we had received several hard knocks from the larger pieces, which, with all our care, we could not avoid.  After clearing one danger we still had another to encounter; the weather remained foggy, and many large islands lay in our way; so that we had to luff for one, and bear up for another.  One we were very near falling aboard of, and, if it had happened, this circumstance would never have been related.  These difficulties, together with the improbability of finding land farther south, and the impossibility of exploring it, on account of the ice, if we should find any, determined me to get more to the north.  At the time we last tacked, we were in the longitude of 159 deg. 20’ W., and in the latitude of 66 deg. 0’ S. Several penguins were seen on some of these islands, and a few antarctic peterels on the wing.

We continued to stand to the north, with a fresh gale at west, attended with thick snow showers, till eight o’clock in the evening, when the wind abated, the sky began to clear up, and at six o’clock in the morning of the 16th it fell calm.  Four hours after, it was succeeded by a breeze at N.E. with which we stretched to the S.E., having thick hazy weather, with snow showers, and all our rigging coated with ice.  In the evening, we attempted to take some up out of the sea, but were obliged to desist; the sea running too high, and the pieces being so large, that it was dangerous for the boat to come near them.