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.
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