To our great joy and some surprise “Polar” was in the bay when we got up this morning; she had got in at about 3a.m. After breakfast we started unloading coal, there were about ten tons of it and most of the bags were too heavy for me to carry. However, the crew and Brownie did Trojan work and the bags we got on to the shore beyond the sea level. After lunch we unloaded the wood for the hut and that took us till 7 o’clock. Schmidt has come in ‘Polar” to superintend the building of the hut. I was cook tonight and found how good tinned sausages are! After supper Sandy, Andrew and Archie departed to the other side.
Sunday August 11th
It was a truly magnificent sunny day, rather like an English fine May day except that it lasted for 24 hours! So much warmer that there was a general discard of clothing and after days of freezing temperatures I was warm in just flannel trousers, a shirt and a jersey. Sandy, Andrew and Archie returned early in the morning, having had a successful visit to the other side. Dan and David went off in the motor boat, hunting. Brownie and I erected a huge stand to hang seals on, and later I helped Karl to build the ionosphere hut and Brownie in erecting the telephone and cable posts between it and the main hut. It was hot working. I also noticed that since leaving England I have let my belt out two holes! Apart from usual food, we eat biscuits and margarine almost continuously, so we’ll be very fat before the winter begins. There were complicated boat changes in the evening - Sandy and Archie had pieced together one of the Klippers - a collapsible two-man canoe - and went off in it, met Dan and David and exchanged boats and then apparently got John too, but they are not back now. The crew started building the hut to-day and got on splendidly in the morning, though they don’t seem to have done much since.
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