Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

during the day and completed the chapters I had brought with me. Very pleased
with myself. I also sent several telegrams to Cambridge. The video that evening was
"The Killing Grounds" - particularly obscene in our pristine polar world. (Noon
position: 67°43'S, 08°37'W).
Conditions continued similar on 30 December, skirting the edge of the pack. At
noon we turned WNW towards the southern end of the South Sandwich chain. I
worked most of the day on writing and did a clothes wash. We had four Rothera
Fids in for drinks and talk. The evening's video film was "Spitting Image" - quite
amusing. Alan Smith came up to see me about 11 o’clock. He had been working on
the Rothera designs and had discovered that, owing to an error in checking on
figures on a plan - a misreading of 1200 cm for 1800 cm. - the Rothera new building
foundations had been wrongly sited. The minimum necessary correction meant that
two rows of foundation pillars would need to be replaced, requiring six tons of
cement, 11 tons of sand and 14 tons of aggregate. Enquiries were being made in
Stanley, but if not successful we would have to go to Montevideo to collect. We
should have an answer from Myriam tomorrow. This was very disturbing and of
course Alan was very apologetic, poor fellow. (Noon position: 62°35'S 07°34'W).
A wild morning followed with strong winds and confused swell from at least
three directions. There was no horizon to be seen, it was snowing and the sparse
rotten ice was moving on the swells. The birds had increased in number: cape
pigeons, and prions had returned; a bottle nosed whale surfaced near the ship; we
were making good progress. About 11 o’clock the swell began to increase and the
ship to roll more. Soon we were enveloped in a dense horizontal blizzard, with
strong winds, rising seas and heavy rolling. Our course was still 282°. A reassuring
message came in from Myriam: cement, sand and gravel could be supplied from
Stanley, but they needed bags for the sand and gravel. Paul Whiteman was trying to
obtain these and air-freight them, but otherwise we might have to use empty fuel
drums. I received a message from Marj about the New Year Honours: Eric Denton a
KB, Morton Boyd CBE, Chris Furse OBE among others! I worked on papers during
the afternoon. My plan to provide Pisco sours for the wardroom went awry when I
opened the Chilean case (which I had been given three yrs ago by the Commandant
at Marsh Station - as Pisco - and hadn’t reached me until now) and found it contained
Chilean red and white wines! So instead we had gin sours and after dinner talked
over the port. (noon position: 60°34'S, 17°05'W).
New Year's Day, l987, was seen in by quite a rough night, overcast with a
screaming wind. More icebergs and bergy bits than usual. The heavy seas and
motion continued. We were on course 290° for the South Sandwich Islands. I saw a
band of penguins porpoising - about 80 miles from the nearest land. There were the
usual birds around, including a frail-looking storm petrel skittering over the waves.
It was an impressive seascape with towering waves breaking over the ship and big
rollers breaking at the crests of these waves. The sun broke through occasionally.
Because of the sea-state Stuart had to reduce speed to 8 knots (from 12), thus adding
to his problems with the itinerary. We heard from Paul Whiteman that he had
obtained the bags for the sand and gravel. There were quite a lot of bergy bits and
icebergs around and we passed one berg with some hundreds of penguin passengers
on it. The weather remained bad and the ship's motion was quite violent; it was
getting a little tiring. The wind was screaming at 40 knots. I read Lovelock's Gaia
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