South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
which here was robbed of its break by the masses of ice to windward.
We skirted the northern edge of the pack in clear weather with a light
south-westerly breeze and an overcast sky. The bergs were numerous.
During the morning of December 9 an easterly breeze brought hazy
weather with snow, and at 4.30 p.m. we encountered the edge of pack-ice
in lat. 58° 27´ S., long. 22° 08´ W. It was one-year-old ice
interspersed with older pack, all heavily snow-covered and lying
west-south-west to east-north-east. We entered the pack at 5 p.m., but
could not make progress, and cleared it again at 7.40 p.m. Then we
steered east-north-east and spent the rest of the night rounding the
pack. During the day we had seen adelie and ringed penguins, also
several humpback and finner whales. An ice-blink to the westward
indicated the presence of pack in that direction. After rounding the
pack we steered S. 40° E., and at noon on the 10th had reached lat. 58°
28´ S., long. 20° 28´ W. Observations showed the compass variation to
be 1½° less than the chart recorded. I kept the _Endurance_ on the
course till midnight, when we entered loose open ice about ninety miles
south-east of our noon position. This ice proved to fringe the pack,
and progress became slow. There was a long easterly swell with a light
northerly breeze, and the weather was clear and fine. Numerous bergs
lay outside the pack.
The _Endurance_ steamed through loose open ice till 8 a.m. on the 11th,
when we entered the pack in lat. 59° 46´ S., long. 18° 22´ W. We could
have gone farther east, but the pack extended far in that direction,
and an effort to circle it might have involved a lot of northing. I did
not wish to lose the benefit of the original southing. The extra miles
would not have mattered to a ship with larger coal capacity than the
_Endurance_ possessed, but we could not afford to sacrifice miles
unnecessarily. The pack was loose and did not present great
difficulties at this stage. The foresail was set in order to take
advantage of the northerly breeze. The ship was in contact with the ice
occasionally and received some heavy blows. Once or twice she was
brought up all standing against solid pieces, but no harm was done. The
chief concern was to protect the propeller and rudder. If a collision
seemed to be inevitable the officer in charge would order “slow” or
“half speed” with the engines, and put the helm over so as to strike
floe a glancing blow. Then the helm would be put over towards the ice
with the object of throwing the propeller clear of it, and the ship
would forge ahead again. Worsley, Wild, and I, with three officers,
kept three watches while we were working through the pack, so that we
had two officers on deck all the time. The carpenter had rigged a
six-foot wooden semaphore on the bridge to enable the navigating
officer to give the seamen or scientists at the wheel the direction and
the exact amount of helm required. This device saved time, as well as
the effort of shouting. We were pushing through this loose pack all
day, and the view from the crow’s-nest gave no promise of improved
conditions ahead. A Weddell seal and a crab-eater seal were noticed on
the floes, but we did not pause to secure fresh meat. It was important
that we should make progress towards our goal as rapidly as possible,
and there was reason to fear that we should have plenty of time to
spare later on if the ice conditions continued to increase in severity.
On the morning of December 12 we were working through loose pack which
later became thick in places. The sky was overcast and light snow was
falling. I had all square sail set at 7 a.m. in order to take advantage
of the northerly breeze, but it had to come in again five hours later
when the wind hauled round to the west. The noon position was lat. 60°
26´ S., long. 17° 58´ W., and the run for the twenty-four hours had
been only 33 miles. The ice was still badly congested, and we were
pushing through narrow leads and occasional openings with the floes
often close abeam on either side. Antarctic, snow and stormy petrels,
fulmars, white-rumped terns, and adelies were around us. The quaint
little penguins found the ship a cause of much apparent excitement and
provided a lot of amusement aboard. One of the standing jokes was that
all the adelies on the floe seemed to know Clark, and when he was at
the wheel rushed along as fast as their legs could carry them, yelling
out “Clark! Clark!” and apparently very indignant and perturbed that he
never waited for them or even answered them.
We found several good leads to the south in the evening, and continued
to work southward throughout the night and the following day. The pack
extended in all directions as far as the eye could reach. The noon
observation showed the run for the twenty-four hours to be 54 miles, a
satisfactory result under the conditions. Wild shot a young Ross seal
on the floe, and we manœuvred the ship alongside. Hudson jumped down,
bent a line on to the seal, and the pair of them were hauled up. The
seal was 4 ft. 9 in. long and weighed about ninety pounds. He was a
young male and proved very good eating, but when dressed and minus the
blubber made little more than a square meal for our twenty-eight men,
with a few scraps for our breakfast and tea. The stomach contained only
_amphipods_ about an inch long, allied to those found in the whales at
Grytviken.
The conditions became harder on December 14. There was a misty haze,
and occasional falls of snow. A few bergs were in sight. The pack was
denser than it had been on the previous days. Older ice was
intermingled with the young ice, and our progress became slower. The
propeller received several blows in the early morning, but no damage
was done. A platform was rigged under the jib-boom in order that Hurley
might secure some kinematograph pictures of the ship breaking through
the ice. The young ice did not present difficulties to the _Endurance_,
which was able to smash a way through, but the lumps of older ice were
more formidable obstacles, and conning the ship was a task requiring
close attention. The most careful navigation could not prevent an
occasional bump against ice too thick to be broken or pushed aside. The
southerly breeze strengthened to a moderate south-westerly gale during
the afternoon, and at 8 p.m. we hove to, stem against a floe, it being
impossible to proceed without serious risk of damage to rudder or
propeller. I was interested to notice that, although we had been
steaming through the pack for three days, the north-westerly swell
still held with us. It added to the difficulties of navigation in the
lanes, since the ice was constantly in movement.
The _Endurance_ remained against the floe for the next twenty-four
hours, when the gale moderated. The pack extended to the horizon in all
directions and was broken by innumerable narrow lanes. Many bergs were
in sight, and they appeared to be travelling through the pack in a
south-westerly direction under the current influence. Probably the pack
itself was moving north-east with the gale. Clark put down a net in
search of specimens, and at two fathoms it was carried south-west by
the current and fouled the propeller. He lost the net, two leads, and a
line. Ten bergs drove to the south through the pack during the
twenty-four hours. The noon position was 61° 31´ S., long. 18° 12´ W.
The gale had moderated at 8 p.m., and we made five miles to the south
before midnight and then we stopped at the end of a long lead, waiting
till the weather cleared. It was during this short run that the
captain, with semaphore hard-a-port, shouted to the scientist at the
wheel: “Why in Paradise don’t you port!” The answer came in indignant
tones: “I am blowing my nose.”
The _Endurance_ made some progress on the following day. Long leads of
open water ran towards the south-west, and the ship smashed at full
speed through occasional areas of young ice till brought up with a
heavy thud against a section of older floe. Worsley was out on the
jib-boom end for a few minutes while Wild was conning the ship, and he
came back with a glowing account of a novel sensation. The boom was
swinging high and low and from side to side, while the massive bows of
the ship smashed through the ice, splitting it across, piling it mass
on mass and then shouldering it aside. The air temperature was 37°
Fahr., pleasantly warm, and the water temperature 29° Fahr. We
continued to advance through fine long leads till 4 a.m. on December
17, when the ice became difficult again. Very large floes of
six-months-old ice lay close together. Some of these floes presented a
square mile of unbroken surface, and among them were patches of thin
ice and several floes of heavy old ice. Many bergs were in sight, and
the course became devious. The ship was blocked at one point by a
wedge-shaped piece of floe, but we put the ice-anchor through it, towed
it astern, and proceeded through the gap. Steering under these
conditions required muscle as well as nerve. There was a clatter aft
during the afternoon, and Hussey, who was at the wheel, explained that
“The wheel spun round and threw me over the top of it!” The noon
position was lat. 62° 13´ S., long. 18° 53´ W., and the run for the
preceding twenty-four hours had been 32 miles in a south-westerly
direction. We saw three blue whales during the day and one emperor
penguin, a 58-lb. bird, which was added to the larder.
The morning of December 18 found the _Endurance_ proceeding amongst
large floes with thin ice between them. The leads were few. There was a
northerly breeze with occasional snow-flurries. We secured three
crab-eater seals—two cows and a bull. The bull was a fine specimen,
nearly white all over and 9 ft. 3 in. long; he weighed 600 lbs. Shortly
before noon further progress was barred by heavy pack, and we put an
ice-anchor on the floe and banked the fires. I had been prepared for
evil conditions in the Weddell Sea, but had hoped that in December and
January, at any rate, the pack would be loose, even if no open water
was to be found. What we were actually encountering was fairly dense
pack of a very obstinate character. Pack-ice might be described as a
gigantic and interminable jigsaw-puzzle devised by nature. The parts of
the puzzle in loose pack have floated slightly apart and become
disarranged; at numerous places they have pressed together again; as
the pack gets closer the congested areas grow larger and the parts are
jammed harder till finally it becomes “close pack,” when the whole of
the jigsaw-puzzle becomes jammed to such an extent that with care and
labour it can be traversed in every direction on foot. Where the parts
do not fit closely there is, of course, open water, which freezes over,
in a few hours after giving off volumes of “frost-smoke.” In obedience
to renewed pressure this young ice “rafts,” so forming double
thicknesses of a toffee-like consistency. Again the opposing edges of
heavy floes rear up in slow and almost silent conflict, till high
“hedgerows” are formed round each part of the puzzle. At the junction
of several floes chaotic areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are
formed. Sometimes 5-ft. to 6-ft. piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice
are seen so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be
Nature’s work. Again, a winding canyon may be traversed between icy
walls 6 ft. to 10 ft. high, or a dome may be formed that under renewed
pressure bursts upward like a volcano. All the winter the drifting pack
changes—grows by freezing, thickens by rafting, and corrugates by
pressure. If, finally, in its drift it impinges on a coast, such as the