It may not be believed, but I was one of the first up this morning and helped to fry eggs and potatoes - not very successfully. It is Bank holiday, but not for us. In the morning we stacked the food-boxes in some semblance of order, and were enraged by Peak Freans who, in spite of our request to limit the weight of boxes to 75lbs, put all the Vita-Weat into one box and it needed four of us to lift it.
In the afternoon we went out sealing, which is good fun. John and Brownie went out on the ice, but Andrew, Karl and I continued in the whale boat. Karl stands in the bows, I sit at the oars, and Andrew sits in the stern to help spot the seals, or row or steer. The chief trouble is that the seal sinks when killed, so when a seal is within 40 yards or so, Karl shoots and we row hard, and Carl harpoons the seal before it has sunk too deep. He missed the first two - he hadn’t used the rifle before - but killed with all the remaining four of his shots. One we lost, as it dropped overboard just as we were landing, but luckily we found it later - floating - for some obscure reason. Karl said it was a bad day and that the seals were scared, and certainly they never came very near. After that we went home and had seal for supper at night, but as Karl insisted on cooking it for three hours we didn’t start eating till 11p.m. - i.e. after local midnight. Still, it is light all the time, and it was worth waiting as long for it.
Journal Entry - Tuesday August 6th
Mostly spent in general duties about camp - opening boxes and breaking them up for firewood, stacking boxes, cooking, washing up etc. The feature of the day has been the rolling of a stone down the cliff - not into the camp. It was a big boulder that loosened right at the top and you could hear it - right up at the top bringing a few others with it but gradually the smaller ones got stopped and the big ones rolled right down to the bottom. The time it took to fall shows how high the cliffs really are. In the evening under John’s supervision some of us helped to build a cairn of big boulders with a large piece of driftwood in the middle, and then I helped Karl with his repairs and improvements to the big boat. Robert stayed in bed to-day, not feeling well.
Journal Entry - Wednesday August 7th
It was sunny and bright as usual in the morning on getting up, but there had been a short shower during the night. At first all efforts were directed in getting off the reconnoitering and surveying party in the big boat with the outboard. Sandy, Andrew and Karl were going to Karl’s hut in the Hansteen valley - the originally planned base - (the ice in the bay has now gone out) to investigate that site and to examine the way up to the ice-cap, while Dan and John were to start the survey. They got off at midday, and when we last saw them the little motor was taking them at top speed across the bay. Archie had returned on “Polar” to fetch the medical stores. Robert was still in bed, so only Brownie, David and I were left at the camp. We busied ourselves mostly with jobs of our own - I had unpacking to do, and piled snow on the cairn to make it more visible, and did most of the catering. The mist came down in the afternoon and we soon couldn’t see the other side of the bay. In the afternoon we went out sealing for a bit, but saw none about. After that we had fun trying to cook three eider duck that had been shot in the last few days, and it was very successful. Afterwards a bit of spare time for writing, and fairly early to bed.
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