Soon we were straining at the oars with the gale on our bows.  Never had we found a more severe task.  The wind shifted from the south to the south-west, and the shortage of oars became a serious matter.  The ‘James Caird’, being the heaviest boat, had to keep a full complement of rowers, while the ‘Dudley Docker’ and the ‘Stancomb Wills’ went short and took turns using the odd oar.  A big swell was thundering against the cliffs and at times we were almost driven on to the rocks by swirling green waters.  We had to keep close inshore in order to avoid being embroiled in the raging sea, which was lashed snow-white and quickened by the furious squalls into a living mass of sprays.  After two hours of strenuous labour we were almost exhausted, but we were fortunate enough to find comparative shelter behind a point of rock.  Overhead towered the sheer cliffs for hundreds of feet, the sea-birds that fluttered from the crannies of the rock dwarfed by the height.  The boats rose and fell in the big swell, but the sea was not breaking in our little haven, and we rested there while we ate our cold ration.  Some of the men had to stand by the oars in order to pole the boats off the cliff-face.

After half an hour’s pause I gave the order to start again.  The ‘Dudley Docker’ was pulling with three oars, as the ‘Stancomb Wills’ had the odd one, and she fell away to leeward in a particularly heavy squall.  I anxiously watched her battling up against wind and sea.  It would have been useless to take the ‘James Caird’ back to the assistance of the ‘Dudley Docker’ since we were hard pressed to make any progress ourselves in the heavier boat.  The only thing was to go ahead and hope for the best.  All hands were wet to the skin again and many men were feeling the cold severely.  We forged on slowly and passed inside a great pillar of rock standing out to sea and towering to a height of about 2400 ft.  A line of reef stretched between the shore and this pillar, and I thought as we approached that we would have to face the raging sea outside; but a break in the white surf revealed a gap in the reef and we laboured through, with the wind driving clouds of spray on our port beam.  The ‘Stancomb Wills’ followed safely.  In the stinging spray I lost sight of the ‘Dudley Docker’ altogether.  It was obvious she would have to go outside the pillar as she was making so much leeway, but I could not see what happened to her and I dared not pause.  It was a bad time.  At last, about 5 p.m., the ‘James Caird’ and the ‘Stancomb Wills’ reached comparatively calm water and we saw Wild’s beach just ahead of us.  I looked back vainly for the ’Dudley Docker’.