14 CHALLENGER 



and the ship had to push her way through loose pack, butting the 

 smaller pans end on, rising a little, and then breaking through 

 with her weight. After rounding the south-west end of Wrecked 

 Boat Island the pack was heavier and the Captain decided to stand 

 inshore to pass inside Kutallik Island, the ship finally coming to 

 anchor for the night in Davis Inlet. 



On Wednesday morning the ship was under way by 4.30 and 

 passed north-eastward of Ukasiksalik Island, but the ice-pack ex- 

 tended inside Freestone Islands and it was doubtful whether it 

 was best to try and go through it or to take the inner channels. 

 The inner route was selected as Captain Clarke thought it likely 

 that the ice would become worse towards Spracklings Island. 

 The lead in the ice divided into two between Tunnungayualuk 

 and the mainland, and choosing one of these leads the ship soon 

 passed the wrong side of an island and had a rock awash ahead 

 and had to bring up. The two motor sounding launches were 

 lowered and with lead and line tried to find a passage but with 

 no result. So the ship turned back and tried the other lead, with 

 the boats ahead of her running submarine sentries, a simple 

 device made of two boards about two feet long and six inches 

 wide, secured at right angles, which when towed from a boat 

 keeps a steady depth according to the length of the towing line. 

 When the depth of water is less than that to which the sentry is 

 set it strikes the bottom and rises to the surface to give warning 

 of shallow water ; a device used by generations of surveyors for 

 feeling their way in uncharted waters. 



The sentries soon tripped and the boats then commenced a 

 search for deeper water; it was not until £ o'clock that they 

 found a passage with six fathoms of water through it and the 

 ship was able to proceed. The boat's sentries tripped again in 

 the Narrows between Tuktuinak Islands and Tunnungayualuk. 

 The ship anchored while they searched for a passage, which they 

 eventually found, and then went on as far as Achpitok Island 

 where, at 10 o'clock at night, she brought up in 18 fathoms 

 between the island and the mainland. 



By Thursday rainy weather had set in. The ship weighed 

 anchor at 4.30 in the morning and stood across to Dog Island 

 through a lead in the ice. The existing chart was wrongly orient- 

 ated here but a channel was followed between Nochalik and 



