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

as was standard practice, because our first priority in the conditions prevailing was
to erect the tent. Even in the relatively warm tent it took about two hours to restore
the circulation and it was very painful too; when I took my boots off my feet were the
colour of tallow candles and as hard as wood - frozen stiff in fact! The right big toe
looked particularly swollen and liable to blister. I hoped they would be all right.
When it was clear, between gusts, we could see ‘Sgurr nan Gillean’ to the South
of our camp and the superb South-west face of ‘Sgurr Alasdair’ above us to the
North. We were well away from it and free from avalanche danger. The top of the col
was about 80 ft above us and fairly flat; the wind swept furiously over it and in a
torment of blown snow battered the tent. (This col was later named Cold Blow Col).
We had heard seal noises all day, when the wind permitted, and there were snow
petrels nesting on the northwest face of Wave Peak Buttress and on the crags of
‘Sgurr nan Gillean’. In some of the ice falls below the plateau, there were interesting
‘block-schollen’ formations in which the annual layered structure of the ice could be
clearly seen. I cooked supper of corned beef (fortunately untainted), potatoes,
tomatoes, and butter hoosh, biscuits, mint cake, Califorange and coffee.
We had hoped to reach a col leading over to the north coast of Coronation Island
but it was not to be, for we spent a sleepless night enduring a very strong blow,
which early on collapsed the tent about us. The flimsy 1 2 inch bamboo tent pole
segments snapped like matchsticks during the night; the first went at midnight and
the others followed rapidly. Fortunately the single thickness of fabric held but we
had to fight against the snow which threatened to bury the tent and penetrated the
mosquito netting (truly!) ventilators. We spent the night sitting hunched-up in our
sleeping bags, holding onto the poles, as the snow-drift collapsed the walls of the tent
upon us, so that the space around us diminished. Then, on looking outside that
morning we were alarmed to see the sea ice between Coronation Island and Signy
Island breaking up. The flat surface was etched with black cracks, which were
spreading and getting wider. If we were not to be marooned for a lengthy spell on
Coronation Island we had to race back to base. So we broke camp very quickly,
crossed the glacier at record speed and dumped half the stores in a cache at Shingle
Cove before hot-footing it across the strait. The ice was rotten but safe enough. (In
fact it didn't finally go until the end of October, but we weren’t taking chances). And
so - skiing and pulling the sledge - back to our small island home. We were pretty
well done in after a week of it and on one day it had taken us several hours to cover a
mile.
Subsequently, my frost-bitten feet gave me hell, but there was no alternative. As
a result they became very badly blistered, the toes and ball of the foot swelling up to
tennis-ball size. On 12 September I sent a message to David Dalgliesh about my
frostbite and he replied with advice - assuming it was very serious, saying I had
better go to bed. There was one from Fuchs about footwear - referring to an article in
Polar Record about mukluks - and asking for an account of the journey. I drafted a
message about footwear and one on the journey and then retired to bed; Derek
sterilized a needle and pricked the blisters, which collapsed and eventually healed.
So ended prematurely our first winter journey. We had been lucky in view of our
inexperience.
In our absence Ralph had found the isolation and loneliness rather eerie, but
busied himself with work. One evening, reading near the stove, he was startled by a
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