Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

decided that the BAS flight uplifting Peter Clarkson's party from the Shackleton
Range should offload people and cargo at the Argentine station Belgrano, and then
fly to Halley and back. From time to time I also tried to talk with the ‘John Biscoe’ but
without success, although we heard Faraday and Halley stations on the air.
Next day the work continued in very dull and overcast conditions and in heavy
pack ice. Seals were sparse, but we saw five or six family groups and several
male:female pairs, as well as two leopard seals. The going was very slow, but we
inched down the west coast of Smith Island, about fifteen miles offshore. At six in
the evening we sighted a female:pup pair - the first ever seen, as invariably they had
been accompanied by a male. The ship was making very slow progress in thick pack
ice and so the seal biologists (excluding Torger and me), went over the floes to the
seals about 200 yards away. After they left we noticed from the ship a lone seal
making its way over the ice towards the cow and pup raising its head from time to
time to look; probably it was a male. But then it disappeared under the ice and
wasn't seen again.
The others found an unusual situation. The female had two leopard seal wounds
across her belly, which had ripped away part of one breast, so that milk was leaking
onto the pup and the floe. Both pup and mother were badly soiled with oil from the
milkfat and were in very poor condition; the pup seemed unlikely to survive.
Perhaps the reason no male had joined the pair was that oil had masked the smell of
the female or the pup or both? The ice was locked in tight and after dinner we went
over the ice to the pair to do some hydrophone recording. As we walked over the
floes they were moving only slightly, but groaning and creaking, with no obvious
spaces of any kind between them. Ian put his hydrophone into the water, but the ice
noises - squeaks, creaks, groans and rumbles drowned out other sounds.
Occasionally a harsh, pulsed creaking could be heard, which Ian assured me was a
crabeater. The ship was lit up and we took some evocative photographs, before
travelling back in the dark across the glistening, sparkling, snowy floes to the ship -
somehow it was all rather Christmassy.
During the day I managed to speak to Chris Elliot Captain of the ‘John Biscoe’,
who reported that all was well and his voyage going according to plan. The ship was
now just south of Dallman Bay and so they would be at Damoy on the 'morrow, to
unload and then head north again.
A couple of days later we woke to find that we were still stuck in the pack,
although we had made some progress during the night. It was dull and overcast
again but still bright enough to require snow glasses. Seven of us set off across the
floes after breakfast to visit a triad about half a mile away. The pup was very large
(length over five feet and girth over four feet) and just beginning to moult the natal
fur - a milk-coffee colour. Again the male was very pale. We bagged and tagged the
adults and fitted a radio transmitter around the female's ‘ankle; the transmitter was
the size of a small flat torch battery and had a short antenna. The animals were
measured and blood and toe-nails collected for later study (age estimation). We
decided not to weigh the pup, but it must have been well over 250 lbs. Back across
the tight-packed floes for lunch on the ship.
Then the clouds cleared and the sun shone. Smith Island appeared through the
cloud looking very beautiful and impressive with its steep rock and ice walls - the
highland ice fluted with avalanche grooves. Later Low Island emerged and we could
142