In a few days thick weather, with heavy seas, came on again. Lyon let go both bowers and the sheet anchor; the seas swept them fore and aft, while streams of heavy ice kept driving down upon the ship. The wind increased to a hurricane and all the cables parted. The trysails were set, but the fore trysail gaff went and could not be lowered, every rope being encrusted with a thick coating of ice. They were still 80 miles from Repulse Bay, with no hope of ever reaching it, and accordingly Captain Lyon reluctantly decided on returning to England. He bore up with a sad heart on the 15th September. Yet such a grand story of the pluck and endurance of British seamen so admirably told is worth much more than the journey from Repulse Bay to Cape Turnagain, if it could have been accomplished. Captain Lyon, so enthusiastic, so dauntless, so able and so beloved, is one of the greatest ornaments of polar history[122]. Parry thought that Fury and Hecla Strait opened upon a sea which communicated with Prince Regent’s Inlet, and here again he was right. His idea was in a third voyage to take that route, and there was a prospect of co-operation. Franklin was again exploring the northern coast, while Captain Beechey, Parry’s old first Lieutenant, was conducting a scientific voyage in H.M.S. _Blossom_ in the direction of Bering Strait, and extending discovery from the Icy Cape of Captain Cook to Cape Barrow. At that period there was no lack of enthusiasm, and expedition followed on expedition in rapid succession. The _Hecla_ was commissioned by Captain Parry, and the _Fury_ by his old and faithful comrade in all his northern voyages, Captain Hoppner, on January 17th, 1824. Of Parry’s old shipmates in former voyages, besides Hoppner, there were Sherer and James Ross, now Lieutenants; Crozier and Bird, still midshipmen; and Mr Hooper, the purser. The most distinguished of the new officers were Lieut. Foster, the Assistant Surveyor[123], and Horatio T. Austin, first Lieutenant of the _Fury_. The Arctic ships were accompanied by a transport which filled them up at the Whale Fish Islands in Disco Bay. Here, on one of the smallest islets, the observatory was set up, and Lieut. Foster set to work with his magnetic instruments. Captain Parry and Hoppner went in a boat to the Danish settlement of Lievely on Disco Island, where they made the acquaintance of Lieut. Graah, the explorer of East Greenland. On reaching the ice, Parry again resolved to attempt the middle pack, but this time he was doomed to disappointment. The ice was closely packed, and for upwards of 40 days they were battling with it. At length they reached Lancaster Sound, but it was late in September before they entered Prince Regent’s Inlet. Parry resolved to take up winter quarters on the east side, in Port Bowen, which he had discovered in 1819.