Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

piece for the ship’s Newsletter, on Signy, which I did. A convivial dinner with the
Captain and Engineers. I provided the wine, a Mouton Cadet, and arranged with the
Hamish, the Steward to supply the wine for the following night. Much talk and
good company.
11 November, was a bright but overcast morning with moderate sea. Mark was
successful with his four stations and actually caught some squid larvae! At breakfast
I ended up talking with Jerry and Duncan long after the others had gone. The day
passed reading and writing, including my piece for the JCR website. I went out onto
the after deck to see a bongo net tow – and the results – not very impressive and no
squid larvae were obtained, the object of the exercise. Some 23 hauls in all were
planned over the Burdwood Bank and we would end up near Beauchene Islands,
south of the Falklands, which I had of course seen before. This happy voyage would
end soon. In the evening a party developed, with free drinks at the bar from 6.0
o’clock and the dinner that followed was very good. Jerry stood up and made a
speech about all I had done for BAS and that everyone had enjoyed my company on
board. Then he presented me with a teakwood plaque which was a brass cut-out of
the Antarctic and brass plate, on which was engraved:
“To Dick Laws:
Best wishes from all on board James Clark Ross
Voyage 10 – 2000. “
It had been made by ‘Rags’, the Third Engineer. I was greatly pleased. The
convivial evening continued for me until midnight, when I left – after much more
talk.
Unsurprisingly, there followed a dull wet day outside and a rising sea. I visited
the bridge before breakfast as usual, when we were doing a bongo haul, no. 18 – 5
more to go. The day was uneventful, filled with writing and reading. The seas get
worse and then at 7.30 pm we turned broadside on to the waves and suffered heavy
rolls for two hours or so, before changing course again. The squid netting had been
completed and at 8.0 o’clock Beauchene Island lay abeam, just a grey silhouette five
miles away. We had curry for dinner and a bottle of red wine. I went up to the bridge
for half an hour, being tossed around and then down to my cabin to read. It’s too
tiring to do anything else. Stuart Lawrence on the Shackleton, the BAS logistics vessel
sent me his regards. It was going to be a rough night with winds of force 9 or 10.
The night lived up to expectations. I slept until 3.30 and fitfully thereafter, being
tossed around and a particularly vicious roll threw me out of the bunk onto the cabin
floor about 5 o’clock. Later I checked that it was a 38° roll! So eventually I woke to
the alarm still feeling a bit tired. It remained very rough -holding-on weather all
night - which is tiring in itself. But I had escaped bruises. After breakfast I went up
to the bridge when we were off Cape Pembroke, Falkland Islands, still in heavy beam
seas from the South, but these dropped as we felt the shelter of the land. Through
the Narrows after passing a Spanish long-liner and tied up alongside FIPAS about 9
o’clock. Myriam Booth came aboard about 9.45 am and had a chat in the Captain’s
cabin. She said the BAS Dash-7 (a larger aircraft than the Twin Otters, but from the
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