We had been making westward with oars and sails since April 9, and fair easterly winds had prevailed.  Hopes were running high as to the noon observation for position.  The optimists thought that we had done sixty miles towards our goal, and the most cautious guess gave us at least thirty miles.  The bright sunshine and the brilliant scene around us may have influenced our anticipations.  As noon approached I saw Worsley, as navigating officer, balancing himself on the gunwale of the ‘Dudley Docker’ with his arm around the mast, ready to snap the sun.  He got his observation and we waited eagerly while he worked out the sight.  Then the ‘Dudley Docker’ ranged up alongside the ‘James Caird’ and I jumped into Worsley’s boat in order to see the result.  It was a grievous disappointment.  Instead of making a good run to the westward we had made a big drift to the south-east.  We were actually thirty miles to the east of the position we had occupied when we left the floe on the 9th.  It has been noted by sealers operating in this area that there are often heavy sets to the east in the Belgica Straits, and no doubt it was one of these sets that we had experienced.  The originating cause would be a north-westerly gale off Cape Horn, producing the swell that had already caused us so much trouble.  After a whispered consultation with Worsley and Wild, I announced that we had not made as much progress as we expected, but I did not inform the hands of our retrograde movement.

The question of our course now demanded further consideration.  Deception Island seemed to be beyond our reach.  The wind was foul for Elephant Island, and as the sea was clear to the south-west; I discussed with Worsley and Wild the advisability of proceeding to Hope Bay on the mainland of the Antarctic Continent, now only eighty miles distant.  Elephant Island was the nearest land, but it lay outside the main body of pack, and even if the wind had been fair we would have hesitated at that particular time to face the high sea that was running in the open.  We laid a course roughly for Hope Bay, and the boats moved on again.  I gave Worsley a line for a berg ahead and told him, if possible, to make fast before darkness set in.  This was about three o’clock in the afternoon.  We had set sail, and as the ‘Stancomb Wills’ could not keep up with the other two boats I took her in tow, not being anxious to repeat the experience of the day we left the reeling berg.  The ‘Dudley Docker’ went ahead, but came beating down towards us at dusk.  Worsley had been close to the berg, and he reported that it was unapproachable.  It was rolling in the swell and displaying an ugly ice-foot.  The news was bad.  In the failing light we turned towards a line of pack, and found it so tossed and churned by the sea that no fragment remained big enough to give us an anchorage and shelter.  Two miles away we could see a larger piece of ice, and to it we managed, after some trouble, to secure the boats.  I brought