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

Rocks, Ralph rowing and Derek perched precariously on the stern, steering. There
seemed to be fewer seals on the beaches than last time. Over the entrance to Elephant
Flats a thick sludge had formed by snow falling on wet new ice - forming into cakes.
It slowed us down appreciably but we managed to land on Waterpipe Beach and
walked up past the pump hut and across the small freshwater lake to the foot of a
steep snowslope, leading to a col below Jane Peak. The view opened out and we
climbed the ‘peak’; Derek wanted to collect some rock specimens, which he had left
there and Ralph was not averse to more climbing so up we went. The peak proper
was rather disappointing, being little more than a ‘gendarme’. It had a columnar
appearance from the southwest but this was due to the vertical strata and not to any
intrinsic columnar crystalline structure of the rock - which was metamorphic. To the
east the cliffs were higher and quite exposed - steep ice slopes dropping away from
the foot of the crags.
The peaks of Coronation were more or less cloud-free and away to the west were
the twin Sandefjord Peaks looking remarkably regular in form and subtly coloured.
To the west of Cape Vik at the deepest part of Norway Bight a deep cut valley
appeared to run north, forming the eastern boundary of the Pomona Plateau of
Coronation Island which abutted onto the ‘twins’ to the west. The middle distance
was a tangled mass of icebergs of all shapes and sizes. The colouring of the ice and
snow slopes was so very pure, and again I was struck by the differing qualities and
colour shades of the icebergs, ice and snow slopes and sky. The ice was greenish, the
snow had a hint of purple in the shadows and the clear sky was more or less
intermediate. Derek took some bearings and Ralph and I went along to the col
between Jane Peak and Robin Peak; he returned to base and I carried on downhill,
and attempted to cut straight across country to North Point. As it was, I found the
easiest route lay near the coast, because there were buttresses and gullies filled with
deep snowdrifts inland.
The seal count began just East of North Point where the coast became more or
less impassible due to the bulk of Robin Peak. In a cove some 200-300 chinstrap
penguins, some on nests, were pursuing their usual behaviour patterns. There were
also a few elegant gentoos on nests, which were much more timid than the chinstrap
and scuttled away when approached. The chinstrap invariably stood their ground
and ‘barked’; some even went so far as to attack my shins with beak and flippers. On
North Point itself was a large chinstrap penguin rookery and I had to make my way
through this causing considerable upset to the occupants. But those birds not directly
affected showed a surprising lack of interest in the intruder.
The West coast was pretty well ice-bound. There were great numbers of small
floes in the shallow water, further out larger bergy bits, and large tabular bergs in
even deeper water where they had grounded. In the bays there was plenty of young
ice - some of it up to 1 2 inch thick, and where it had been broken up pancake ice had
formed, the pancakes for the most part under a foot across. They are appropriately
named, forming as plates of ice jostle each other so that their edges become
upturned. The spaces between the pancakes had refrozen in most bays, to form large
sheets of snow-covered ice floating freely. On many of the floes along this part of the
coast Weddell seals basked in the sun and I saw two crabeaters.
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