At 4 a.m. on 6th April in 46° S., 36° W., a large berg was reported right ahead, just giving us time to clear it. At 4.30 with the first signs of daybreak, several could be distinctly seen to windward, the wind being N.W. and the ship steering N.E. about 9 knots. At daylight, 5.20 a.m., the whole horizon to windward was a complete mass of bergs of enormous size, with an unbroken wall at the back; there were also many to leeward.
I now called all hands, and after reducing speed to 7 knots sent the hands to their stations and stood on. At 7 a.m. there was a wall extending from a point on the lee bow to about 4 points on the lee quarter, and at 7.30 both walls joined ahead. I sent the chief mate aloft with a pair of glasses to find a passage out, but he reported from the topgallant yard that the ice was unbroken ahead. Finding myself embayed and closely beset with innumerable bergs of all shapes, I decided to tack and try and get out the way I had come into the bay.
The cliffs were now truly grand, rising up 300 feet on either side of us, and as square and true at the edge as if just out of a joiner’s shop, with the sea breaking right over the southern cliff and whirling away in a cloud of spray.
Tacked ship at 7.30 finding the utmost difficulty in keeping clear of the huge pieces strewn so thickly in the water and having on several occasions to scrape her along one to keep clear of the next.
We stood on in this way until 11 a.m., when, to my horror, the wind started to veer with every squall till I drew quite close to the southern barrier, having the extreme point a little on my lee bow. I felt sure we must go ashore without a chance of saving ourselves. Just about 11.30 the wind shifted to S.W. with a strong squall, so we squared away to the N.W. and came past the same bergs as we had seen at daybreak, the largest being about 1000 feet high, anvil shaped. At 2 p.m. we got on the N.W. side of the northern arm of the horseshoe shaped mass. It then reached from 4 points on my lee bow to as far as could be seen astern in one unbroken line.
A fact worthy of note was that at least 50 of the bergs in the bay were perfectly black, which was to be accounted for by the temperature of the water, being 51°, which had turned many over. I also think that had there been even the smallest outlet at the eastern side of this mass, the water between the barriers would not have been so thickly strewn with bergs, as the prevailing westerly gales would have driven them through and separated them. I have frequently seen ice down south, but never anything like even the smaller bergs in this group.