Friday August 21st.

Up quite early to start loading: it all went frightfully easily - of course there was much less than when we arrived, and the boxes all disappeared from the shore in no time. Karl was in a very bad temper, and I was detailed to accompany him in his boat to see that he didn't gossip and spread stories about us when unloading into Heimland. He was in a most intractable mood, and we spent most of the time arguing, so that he never stopped to say anything to anybody on the ship! Then he gradually cooled down.

Then "Polarbjorn" arrived - she has been sounding all round Spitzbergen, and has been the sort of mother ship to a seaplane that has surveyed the whole of Spitzbergen and would have done Northeastland as well if there had been time. Dr. Hoel who is director of the Norge-Svalbard office in Oslo - almost prime minister of Svalbard - was on board, and came ashore to see things. Sandy and John went on board to see him and discuss the map with him, and he offered to take John to Walden Island to complete the triangulation, and Sandy asked me to go with him to book. So we finished packing, and went on board "Polarbjorn".

It was a dull day, which made our good-bye to Brandy Bay as little unpleasant as possible. They were all grand on board, and it's a marvellous ship, almost as good as a cross-channel boat! Meals on a table-cloth, civilized food and waited on by white clothed stewards. They have an echo-sounder on board, automatically registering all the time, and if the ship had drawn more water we would have run aground, as there is a bar in the mouth of the bay where it is only 15ft. deep. After about 3 hours we reached Walden Island, and one of the English-speaking members of Hoel's expedition came ashore too to help us with the building of the cairn: an incredibly active fellow, and we had great difficulty even in keeping up with him.

It's a precipitous island about a mile long, and it was very difficult to find a way up; the top was in mist when we started, but it was clear when we got there. However, there was a lot of fog about and it was quite dark, so that John couldn't see Scoresby Island through the fog, or Base mountain cairn on account of the darkness and because it's not on the skyline. I was mad about that. However, John definitely identified that this top where we found the old cairn fallen down was definitely the point to which he observed from Lindhagen. We helped to finish the cairn our Norwegian friend had nearly built, and then set out for home; he collected a huge pile of geological specimens for Hoel on the way back. We got a wonderful view of Snotoppen from here with the big re-entrant from Bird Bay, as if somebody had taken a chisel and cut a slice out of the hill vertically from the top to bottom.

We had refreshments on "Polarbjorn" when we get there, beautiful coffee and bread and butter: yes, I'll be seasick after all this, but it's worth it. Then all gathered for a birthday party beginning at midnight. We made a faux pas by giving our presents to the wrong man - they were 1lb of pemmican and a tube of Redoxon, which we had with us, for originally it was planned that we should be left on Walden Island and be picked up later by Heimland. However, this man misunderstood and thought we wanted him to act as interpreter, so he passed them on later to the right man - one of the seaplane pilots. A grand party, all imbibing much whisky. At last it ended, for Heimland came up and we changed boats, and to bed almost at once.

Saturday August 22nd.

Spent most of the day in a prone position: it's been pretty calm most of the time except when we passed the north of Hinlopen, where it was very rough and everybody retired to their bunks. It's dull and foggy, though, and at last I'm managing to get some sleep.

Sunday August 23rd.

It was quiet down the west coast, and quite early in the morning, before breakfast, we were in King's Bay. We stopped at New Aalesund, for the boat had some timber to discharge here. It was foggy going into the bay but then it lifted and we could get in, but the grand view was obscured by mist all over the mountains.

Went ashore with Robert to look around: not much of a town and the coal-mine is not working now, so there are only a few watchmen and their families living here, in quite nice-looking wooden two-storied houses of the north Norwegian pattern. We walked on to the mine entrance and near to the skeleton of the hangar of the "Norge" and the "Italia". The mooring-mast seemed disappointingly small. All of a sudden the mist began to clear, and revealed high steep mountains all round with most picturesque pinnacles. However, all that there was to be seen was seen in a short time, and we returned to the ship for breakfast. Hundreds of fulmars and glaucous swimming about in the harbour, and an eiderduck with young swimming untroubled within a few yards of the ship. The pier is built on the Vega - the ship on which Nordenskjiold made the first N.E. passage - which was filled with stones and sunk in position: she is such a strong ship that she won't break up.

The skipper had intended to go between Prince Charles foreland and the mainland - but the fog was too thick, as the strait is narrow and dangerous, so we had to go out to open sea. Wrote up my diary of the N. coast survey, and read John's excellent account, and gossiped with David - he and I share a good bunk and a bad one, and take turns about - and went to sleep when the ship began to roll in the evening.

AND THAT IS THE END OF THE JOURNAL WHICH MY DAD KEPT ON HIS FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION - NORTHEASTLAND - JULY 1935 - AUGUST 1936.