Around 9PM the ships observe "a remarkable ray of light"; it is noted in the logbook as the Aurora australis, but it appears again over subsequent nights and eventually proves to be the Great Comet of 1843.
McCormick shoots a Cape petrel, noting that it is the only bird he's shot inside the Antarctic Circle this season.
Erebus's crow's nest is taken down.
10 March 1843: The wind moderates in the morning, and the ships set a course to the northeast.
At night, Terror only narrowly avoids colliding with a large iceberg.
Cunningham writes, "Ship Very uncomfortable but Cant be helped".
Crozier decides that for the ship's safety there should be more people on deck at night and puts Terror's company on two watches, as well as giving orders for the idlers to stand watches.
9 March 1843: The gale continues throughout the next day, now blowing from east-southeast.
Ross praises "Captain Crozier and his officers, for the seamanlike manner in which the Terror was conducted and maintained her station throughout these severe gales; and the vigilance, activity, and cool courage displayed by Commander Bird, and the rest of my companions".
Cunningham writes, "No walking on the upper deck: The Ship Heeling over 25°."
8 March 1843: After six hours of calm, the gale resumes almost as strongly as before. Having gained some ground during the relative calm, the ships are no longer in danger of being driven into the pack, but they are still surrounded by icebergs.
"We were preparing to pass another anxious night," Ross writes, but soon after dark the gale suddenly abates, and has dropped to a near-calm by midnight.
Cunningham notes, "Ship Labouring a deal".
7 March 1843: The gale continues, and the wind veers around until the ships are sailing directly into it as they try to keep to their eastward course.
Ross describes the masts "quiver[ing] to every sea that broke over the ship, and the sprays freezing as they fell upon the rigging... while the extreme darkness of the night kept us in continual apprehension of collision with some of the bergs which at times it seemed almost impossible to avoid".
The ships continue eastward under all the sail they can safely carry.
Fortunately, Ross notes, although the ships "were completely embayed…the gale was driving the pack before it, at about the same rate that we were dropping down upon it".
Under treble-reefed topsails, the ships turn to the east and try to put some distance between themselves and the pack ice, only for the pack to appear ahead of them again in the evening.
6 March 1843: A gale threatens to push the ships back into the pack to their leeward.
Ross signals to Terror that he intends to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope.
At the point at which they turn back, the ships are in latitude 71° 30' S., longitude 14° 51' W. Both ships throw casks overboard containing a piece of paper with the latitude and longitude, signed by the captain and the officers.
By 4PM, after making their way about twenty-seven miles into the pack, the ice becomes so thick that the ships are forced to turn back towards the open ocean.
By noon, the ships have reached the edge of the pack ice; finding the pack to be fairly open, they enter it to try to work their way further south.
5 March 1843: Amid snow and haze in the morning, the ships sight the edge of the pack ice to the southwest.
Around 9PM the ships reach 70° S.
A letter written by Davis at the Falkland Islands in July 1842 is published in the Athenaeum.
McCormick complains that Ross is deliberately avoiding following the path of James Weddell's voyage: "This prejudice on the part of the commander of the expedition is to be deplored, but from the first there has been a disposition not to follow in the track of others, which...cost us the season".
4 March 1843: The ships steer southwest at a speed of nearly five knots.
The same area, rather
Crozier returns to Terror around 10PM.
