After this the 'Yelcho' steamed into San Sebastian Bay." After three days of continuous bad weather we were left alone to attempt once more to rescue the twenty-two men on Elephant Island, for whom by this time I entertained very grave fears.
At dawn of Friday, July 21, we were within a hundred miles of the island, and we encountered the ice in the half-light.

I waited for the full day and then tried to push through.

The little craft was tossing in the heavy swell, and before she had been in the pack for ten minutes she came down on a cake of ice and broke the bobstay.

Then the water- inlet of the motor choked with ice.

The schooner was tossing like a cork in the swell, and I saw after a few bumps that she was actually lighter than the fragments of ice around her.