At 6.30 p.m. a particularly heavy shock went through our floe.  The watchman and other members of the party made an immediate inspection and found a crack right under the ‘James Caird’ and between the other two boats and the main camp.  Within five minutes the boats were over the crack and close to the tents.  The trouble was not caused by a blow from another floe.  We could see that the piece of ice we occupied had slewed and now presented its long axis towards the oncoming swell.  The floe, therefore, was pitching in the manner of a ship, and it had cracked across when the swell lifted the centre, leaving the two ends comparatively unsupported.  We were now on a triangular raft of ice, the three sides measuring, roughly, 90, 100, and 120 yds.  Night came down dull and overcast, and before midnight the wind had freshened from the west.  We could see that the pack was opening under the influence of wind, wave, and current, and I felt that the time for launching the boats was near at hand.  Indeed, it was obvious that even if the conditions were unfavourable for a start during the coming day, we could not safely stay on the floe many hours longer.  The movement of the ice in the swell was increasing, and the floe might split right under our camp.  We had made preparations for quick action if anything of the kind occurred.  Our case would be desperate if the ice broke into small pieces not large enough to support our party and not loose enough to permit the use of the boats.

The following day was Sunday (April 9), but it proved no day of rest for us.  Many of the important events of our Expedition occurred on Sundays, and this particular day was to see our forced departure from the floe on which we had lived for nearly six months, and the start of our journeyings in the boats.

“This has been an eventful day.  The morning was fine, though somewhat overcast by stratus and cumulus clouds; moderate south-south-westerly and south-easterly breezes.  We hoped that with this wind the ice would drift nearer to Clarence Island.  At 7 a.m. lanes of water and leads could be seen on the horizon to the west.  The ice separating us from the lanes was loose, but did not appear to be workable for the boats.  The long swell from the north-west was coming in more freely than on the previous day and was driving the floes together in the utmost confusion.  The loose brash between the masses of ice was being churned to mudlike consistency, and no boat could have lived in the channels that opened and closed around us.  Our own floe was suffering in the general disturbance, and after breakfast I ordered the tents to be struck and everything prepared for an immediate start when the boats could be launched.”

I had decided to take the ‘James Caird’ myself, with Wild and eleven men.  This was the largest of our boats, and in addition to her human complement she carried the major portion of the stores.  Worsley had charge of the ‘Dudley Docker’ with nine men, and Hudson and Crean were the senior men on the ‘Stancomb Wills’.