Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

Will be safe to step on and drink
But this useless stuff
At present so rough
Is causing our vessel to sink.
Over ocean we've chanced now to ramble
On our future we’re not wise to gamble
But wherever we be
Compared with this sea
It couldn't be more of a shambles.
A comment from Brian: "Two years will make a man of you - or a seal!"
Approximate navigation, medical and dental “training”
Most days we were on duty: on bridge watch, steering watch, bosun's party,
painting the ship, swabbing the decks, galley duty (the worst) and so on. One
night I was on bridge watch from 4 to 8 o’clock; star sights on Fomalhaut, Venus
and Aldabaran. The flying fish we were now seeing were very large and solitary
and with wings in a variegated pattern of brown and transparent areas. I put up
the first installment of ‘Hints to collectors – Seals’ (illustrated with cartoons) on
the notice board. It was Jumbo's birthday so we had the weekly ration of liquor
and it developed into quite a party. The Chief Officer (Lord Headley) came
along and took David and me into his cabin, where he produced a bottle of gin;
then the Captain came along with another bottle and later Number One
produced a further bottle. Things went with a swing, until David broke the
desk by sitting on it when the ship rolled. Captain McFie was amusing and
reminisced at length about his experiences and career. (He had spent four
seasons in the Antarctic, in RRS ‘William Scoresby’ as Second Officer, 1935-37 and
in in RRS ‘Discovery II’ as Chief Officer, 1937-39). We went to bed very late in a
boisterous mood and Dudley was most concerned for me, thinking we wouldn't
manage to climb the vertical ladder up to the Monkey Bridge. However we got
rid of him and negotiated the climb with ease.
I was again on watch, but from 4 to 8 o’clock. The First Officer was again
‘pissed as a newt’ and found difficulty taking the star sights and plotting the
position on the chart. The result was maybe within 20 miles of the real position;
we diplomatically blamed the ship's rolling. In fact this was a not infrequent
happening. I used to stay on the bridge until the Second Officer (Tom Miller)
came up to take over the next watch. He would stride over to the chart table,
take up a rubber and without looking closely, rub out the pencilled ‘cocked hat’
(indicating the estimated position of the ship as calculated by the Chief Officer).
Then, taking up the sextant he would say "Now lets see where we really are!"
The Second Officer was really the only reliable deck officer, for the Captain and
First Officer were drunk a lot of the time and the Third Officer was a bit of a
dreamer, who spent much of his time writing poetry.
This was a little disturbing if one stopped to think of it, so, as there was
nothing we could do about it - we tried not to! At 9 o’clock next morning I
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