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

penguins but I saw no more birds. The coast here was very craggy and abrupt with
cliffs over 60 ft high. On the West side there were signs of a raised beach at 30-40 ft.
The rock appeared to be the usual schist with a harder band running down through
‘Castle Crag’ and along the cape to Reid Island - probably gneiss. We appreciated a
pronounced solar halo and also a reflected halo on the ice, which appeared to be two
arcs of a circle intersecting about 6 ft in front of me; it was rather an unusual
phenomenon. Sunshine Glacier was covered with many puffs of vapour, issuing
from the abundant crevasses (warmer air hitting cold surface air), and made it look
quite volcanic.
Devil's Point looked pretty inaccessible, the crags rime-covered and shelving
downwards. I got a good view of the Rime Crests; the projecting bosses of ice with
which they were decorated were huge and quite fantastic - and most of them
overhung. I think they exceed anything seen in the Alps, or possibly the Himalayas.
This side of Coronation rises almost vertically from the coast, especially when seen in
profile. I found only one ‘beach’ - in the bay to the west facing the glacier - but there
were suitable shelving rocks around most of the coast. I met Charlie who had broken
one of his skis along its edge. We began the return journey at 2.0 o’clock and the sun
had gone down by then, but we hurried back taking 1 1 2 hrs to base.
Preparations for the main journey. In early July we began preparing equipment for the
main winter journey. We made new baskets for our ski sticks - from plywood - and I
made the second of a pair of winter bindings. Another bright sunny day we all went
over to the pump hut to look for metal tubing suitable for ski stick ferrules. Derek
made a winter binding one evening. John spent an hour or two trying to get the R/T
working, with Ralph’s help over the air - but no luck. I thought we would probably
have to take the 22 set sledging, in which case it would be necessary to leave the
theodolite behind. I hadn't really thought it necessary and put it to Derek who
agreed.
One day I completed all the sawing and planing of wood for a handlebar
attachment to the sledge. It fitted across the rear end and made it look rather like a
railway porter's truck, but would make pushing easier. (They aren’t usually fitted to
sledges for man-hauling but I thought it would be worth trying). With intermittent
help from Charlie and John, I lashed and soldered the runners from the old sledges.
Derek had a morse-code lesson from John. Another day I continued work on the
sledge; finished the soldering etc. and began on the handle-bars which was all that
remained. John also gave me a brief morse session one evening when Derek was
making cold weather ski bindings.
After another busy day on the sledge it was finished except for a few tiddly bits
of lashing; it should be satisfactory. Derek was doing odds and ends of preparations
for the map making. We had another morse lesson - a bit too fast for me but still
quite useful; I almost knew the alphabet now. Most of another day we spent working
on the sledge - lashings, splicing trace loop and so on. - tried out and found very
satisfactory. Two ration boxes were fitted between the supports of the handlebars. I
opened and examined the contents of two ration boxes; there were several luxuries
that could be dispersed with, and the tins and box weighed 13 lbs out of the 50 lbs
total rations! I sent a message to Dr Fuchs asking what number of man-days this
represented - I made it 20. I received reply from him to my earlier message about the
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