The seventh day we plied room with the shore, but being near it it waxed thick, and we bare off again.
The eighth day we bended in towards the shore again.
The ninth day we sounded, but could get no ground at 130 fathoms. The weather was calm.
The tenth I took four men and myself, and rode to shore, to an island one league from the main, and there the flood setteth south-west along the shore, and it floweth as near as I could judge so too. I could not tarry to prove it, because the ship was a great way from me, and I feared a fog; but when I came ashore it was low water. I went to the top of the islands and before I came back it was hied a foot water, and so without tarrying I came aboard.
The eleventh we found our latitude to be 63 degrees and 8 minutes, and this day entered the strait.
The twelfth we set sail towards an island called the Gabriel’s Island, which was 10 leagues then from us.
We espied a sound, and bare with it, and came to a sandy bay, where we came to an anchor, the land bearing east-south-east of us, and there we rode all night in 8 fathom water. It floweth there at a south-east moon; we called it Prior’s Sound, being from the Gabriel’s Island 10 leagues.
The fourteenth we weighed and ran into another sound, where we anchored in 8 fathoms water, fair sand, and black ooze, and there caulked our ship, being weak from the gunwales upward, and took in fresh water.
The fifteenth day we weighed, and sailed to Prior’s Bay, being a mile from thence.
The sixteenth day was calm, and we rode still without ice, but presently within two hours it was frozen round about the ship, a quarter of an inch thick, and that bay very fair and calm.