30th January 1833

[This image, from Google earth, shows clearly the glaciers on the northern shore, and the fresh water melt being carried east in the current]

Beagle Channel/Darwin Sound
The scenery was very grand, we were sailing parallel, as it were to the backbone of Tierra del; the central granitic ridge which has determined the form of all the lesser ones. It was a great comfort finding all the natives absent; the outer coast during the summer is on account of the seals, their chief resort. At night we had miserable quarters, we slept on boulders, the intervals being filled up with putrefying seaweed; & the water flowed to the very edge of the tent.

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
We passed into a large expanse of water, which I named Darwin Sound — after my messmate, who so willingly encountered the discomfort and risk of a long cruise in a small loaded boat. Desirous of finding an opening northwards, I traced the northern shore of this sound, mile by mile, leaving all islands to the southward until we entered Whale-boat Sound, and I recognized Cape Desolation in the distance, as well as a number of minor points which had become familiar to me during the search after our lost boat in the former voyage (1830).