There was a hut there and some stores which had been taken down by the ship which went to the rescue of Nordenskjold's Expedition in 1904, and whose fitting out and equipment I had charge of.

We remarked amongst ourselves what a strange turn of fate it would be if the very cases of provisions which I had ordered and sent out so many years before were now to support us during the coming winter.

But this was not to be.

March 5 found us about forty miles south of the longitude of Paulet Island, but well to the east of it; and as the ice was still too much broken up to sledge over, it appeared as if we should be carried past it.

By March 17 we were exactly on a level with Paulet Island but sixty miles to the east.
It might have been six hundred for all the chance that we had of reaching it by sledging across the broken sea-ice in its present condition.
Our thoughts now turned to the Danger Islands, thirty-five miles away.
"It seems that we are likely to drift up and down this coast from south- west to north-east and back again for some time yet before we finally clear the point of Joinville Island; until we do we cannot hope for much opening up, as the ice must be very congested against the south- east coast of the island, otherwise our failure to respond to the recent south-easterly gale cannot be well accounted for.