CHAPTER V
ANTARCTICA—THROUGH THE PACK ICE TO LAND
We sighted our first iceberg in latitude 62 degrees on the evening of Wednesday, December 7. Cheetham's squeaky hail came down from aloft and I went up to the crow's-nest to look at it, and from this time on we passed all kinds of icebergs, from the huge tabular variety to the little weathered water-worn bergs. Some we steamed quite close to and they seemed for all the world like great masses of sugar floating in the sea.
From latitudes 60 to 63 degrees we saw a fair number of birds: southern fulmars, whale birds, molly-mawks, sooty albatrosses, and occasionally Cape-pigeons still. Then the brown-backed petrels began to appear, sure precursors of the pack ice—it was in sight right enough the day after the brown-backs were seen. By breakfast time on December 9, when nearly in latitude 65 degrees, we were steaming through thin streams of broken pack with floes from six to twelve feet across. A few penguins and seals were seen, and by 10 a.m. no less than twenty-seven icebergs in sight. The newcomers to these regions were clustered in little groups on the forecastle and poop sketching and painting, hanging over the bows and gleefully watching this lighter stuff being brushed aside by our strong stem.
We were passing through pack all day, but the ice hereabouts was not close enough nor heavy enough to stop us appreciably. The ship was usually conned by Pennell and myself from the crow's-nest, and I took the ship very near one berg for Ponting to cinematograph it. We now began to see snow petrels with black beaks and pure white bodies, rather resembling doves. Also we saw great numbers of brown-backed petrels the first day in the pack, whole flights of them resting on the icebergs. The sun was just below the horizon at midnight and we had a most glorious sunset, which was first a blazing copper changing to salmon pink and then purple. The pools of water between the floes caught the reflection, the sea was perfectly still and every berg and ice-floe caught something of the delicate colour. Wilson, of course, was up and about till long after midnight sketching and painting. The Antarctic pack ice lends itself to water-colour work far better than to oils.
When conning the ship from up in the crow's-nest one has a glorious view of this great changing ice-field. Moving through lanes of clear blue water, cannoning into this floe and splitting it with iron-bound stem, overriding that and gnawing off a twenty ton lump, gliding south, east, west, through leads of open water, then charging an innocent-looking piece which brings the ship up all-standing, astern and ahead again, screwing and working the wonderful wooden ship steadily southward until perhaps two huge floes gradually narrow the lane and hold the little lady fast in their frozen grip.
This is the time to wait and have a look round: on one side floes the size of a football field, all jammed together, with their torn up edges showing their limits and where the pressure is taken. Then three or four bergs, carved from the distant Barrier, imprisoned a mile or so away, with the evening sun's soft rays casting beautiful shadows about them and kissing their glistening cliff faces.
Glancing down from the crow's-nest the ship throws deep shadows over the ice and, while the sun is just below the southern horizon, the still pools of water show delicate blues and greens that no artist can ever do justice to. It is a scene from fairyland.
I loved this part of the voyage, for I was in my element. At odd times during the night, if one can call it night, the crow's-nest would have visitors, and hot cocoa would be sent up in covered pots by means of signal halyards. The pack ice was new to all the ship's officers except myself, but they soon got into the way of conning and working through open water leads and, as time went on, distinguished the thinner ice from the harder and more dangerous stuff.
On December 10 we stopped the ship and secured her to a heavy floe from which we took in sufficient ice to make eight tons of fresh water, and whilst doing this Rennick sounded and obtained bottom in 1964 fathoms, fora-minifera and decomposed skeleton unicellular organs, also two pieces of black basic lava. Lillie and Nelson took plankton and water bottle samples to about 280 fathoms. A few penguins came round and a good many crab-eater seals were seen. In the afternoon we got under way again and worked for about eight miles through the pack, which was gradually becoming denser. About 2:30 p.m. I saw from the crow's-nest four seals on a floe. I slid down a backstay, and whilst the officer on watch worked the ship close to them, I got two or three others with all our firearms and shot the lot from the forecastle head. We had seal liver for dinner that night; one or two rather turned up their noses at it, but, as Scott pointed out, the time would come when seal liver would be a delicacy to dream about.