Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/124

52 more determined to do our utmost to effect the objects we had in view: and although we were driven by the gale and current far away to leeward, yet, towards evening, when it abated, we began to maintain our ground, and, by carrying a heavy press of sail throughout the night, we found ourselves the next morning several miles to windward of East Island, and had Possession Island distinctly in sight on our weather bow. Knowing the greater facility of communicating with this land by reason of the shelter its extent affords from the strong westerly gales that blow almost continually except at this period of the year, and as the larger establishment of sealers was on this island, I preferred beating up to it as the weather was fine and we were making good way, rather than run down to the leeward party at the risk of being again unable to land at their station.

Soon after noon it fell quite calm; and, after firing a few guns, we observed a white flag hoisted on a pole by the party in America Bay: we were, at this time, about five miles from the shore and directly between Possession and East Islands; the weather was still too unsettled for a boat to come off to us. While lying becalmed in this passage we obtained soundings in eighty-five fathoms, on a bank of sand, shells, and corallines. At dusk, on a breeze springing up from the north-west, we stood off to sea for the night.

It blew hard from the north-westward with so dense a haze that it was only during a partial