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

showed up startlingly. We put the sheep ashore, and when the first frightened
animal scurried around the corner, pandemonium reigned. Most of the sea lion
cows took to the water, the bulls backed away from the sheep and all except
two took to the water; the pups following.
Protector continued on down the sound to the old sealing station, which we
reached at 5 o’clock. The Golden Chance was tied up alongside and it was
salutary to think that she had travelled all the way from England on her own.
After an abortive attempt to take on water, we left for the South Atlantic
Sealing Company factory, reached at 6 o’clock in bright sunshine. A rider was
coming over the hill from Port Stevens. We saw Ken's horse near the penguin
rookery and he told me to borrow it whenever I wished.
Next day Peter Tilbury showed me around the factory, which was well
laid-out. Later I walked over to the penguin rookery which contained about
three thousand gentoo penguins; it was set well back from the sea and the birds
walked in from the point, which is one or two miles away. The chicks were in
moult and there were also skuas, upland geese and goslings, and some turkey
buzzards. After supper on the ship Tilbury and I went ashore to get some
equipment for the next part of the trip - two sacks of salt, some alcohol and
knives.
We left Albemarle at 4.50 am and it quickly became very rough, our small
ship rolling badly and crockery crashing around in the galley. Cape Meredith
came abeam, a low shelving, rocky headland, where there was a sea lion
rookery, although we saw none. On either side there were high cliffs. Stephens
Bluff was a magnificent cliff with a dark stratified piece in the centre, marks
like a five-barred gate. Castle Rock is very precipitous, with cliffs about 17 ft
high and an arch running through it from East to West. Johnny told me that the
bay between it and the bluff was called locally ‘Ten Shilling Bay’, no doubt
because someone lost ten bob there. On the moorland behind there were
numerous rock outcrops, reminiscent of Dartmoor Tors. Passing outside Castle
Rock, we saw Bird Island on the horizon, reputedly holding one of the main fur
seal colonies in the islands. I was keen to get ashore there, but the full force of
the current was catching us and the waves were quite high. All along this
South coast are high cliffs, except for the extreme southwestern peninsula, and
they were shrouded at the base in spray.
We passed close to rocky Bird Island, but found it too difficult for a
landing. There are high cliffs to the East where a large cave is reputed to be the
haunt of fur seals. We saw about thirty of them on ledges of the cliff, just to the
North of this cave on the Northeast corner of the island. Some were about
thirty or forty feet above sea level, at first sight apparently on a vertical rock
face, and I was unable to account for this until we passed it and looking back
the cliff was silhouetted against the sky - it rose in a series of rocky ledges. The
Manager of Weddell Island, whom we picked up later in the day, told me that
in the past men used to climb down rope ladders to the caves on Bird Island,
kill and skin the fur seals and carry the skins up on their backs. Passing close to
the North shore, we saw large rookeries of penguins (mainly rockhoppers, with
a few macaronis), shags and mollymauks (black-browed albatrosses). We saw a
few more fur seals on the shelving rocky terrace, which forms the western
333