On board HMS 'Alert' Lt. Parr recorded 'we brought up under the lee of an island just outside the bay and made fast to a large floe which stretched between it and the shore, there being no lead round Cape Prescott, but what seemed to be a solid mass of ice’. Franklin Pierce Bay was described as being three miles broad and two-and -a-half deep. The ships were delayed for nearly two weeks in this area while they waited for openings in the ice to allow them to proceed further north.