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

The Brothers rocks) silhouetted against it. The whole of the area west of
Possession Bay was much less heavily glaciated than the south-east and what
glaciers there were seemed to be regressing rapidly. The snow surface around the
nunataks too seemed to be receding fast (as shown by the absence of colonizing
lichens on the rocks) and large moraines showed up black at the edges of glaciers.
There were many cape-pigeons, Wilson's storm petrels, albatrosses – wandering,
light-mantled sooty, black-browed and grey-headed. The latter I saw for the first
time at close quarters when one remained paddling in the water as we passed; it
was a beautiful bird.
After a glimpse of the little haven of Elsehul, we rounded Cape Alexandra and
pursued an erratic course, dictated by the many rocks, visible and invisible, down
La Roche Strait (Bird Sound on the British Admiralty charts) separating Bird
Island from the mainland. This was typical of the adventurous seamanship shown
by the sealers, but also based on extensive knowledge. On its eastern shores Bird
Island is quite precipitous, [with a number of macaroni penguin rookeries, and the
other side of the strait was very steep and rugged too. As we left the shelter of the
island, we caught the bad weather from the west – the fetch largely unbroken
from Patagonia, over – and began to pitch about. I chatted with the Gunner, Arne
Bogen; he was a very jolly Norwegian, always laughing and joking, and obviously
very tough. We passed inside Three Point Island and round Cape Paryadin into
Undine Harbour.
Sealing methods had changed greatly since the early days, but because of the
difficult nature of the coastline and the necessity of working close inshore small,
easily maneuverable, vessels are still required. In l951 Pesca had four sealing
vessels, all of them obsolete whale-catchers. These were the Lille Carl, built at Oslo,
1884, 83 ft long; Dias, Beverley, 1910, 108 ft; Albatros, Svelvik, 1921, 107 ft; Don
Samuel, Oslo, 1925, 111 ft. The following account of sealing at South Georgia the
l940’s and 50’s is based upon [three] trips I made in 1951 on board the Albatros, Ole
Hauge, master. There were small differences in sealing techniques and in the
composition of the crew in the other vessels. The Albatros was a steel-built, oilburning
vessel retaining traces of her former occupation as a whale catcher, such
as the gun pillar in the bows. She was 107 ft long, 210 grt, 112 net, with steam
engines. The crew, excluding the captain, numbered about sixteen and comprised
an engineer, two firemen, one motorboat man (who occasionally helped in the
engine room). A mate (who was also gunner ashore), two seamen (one of whom
was in charge of the pram dinghy), a cook, a mess boy and seven sealers. The
captain, mate, engineer, motorboat man and cook lived aft, the crew's quarters
were forward of the hold. Men of five or six different nationalities might work in
the Albatros, and the language in general use was a mixture of Spanish and
Norwegian, although most of the sealers were expatriated Poles. As in the
whaling industry, a system of quota and bonus prevailed. The seal ‘quota’ on
which the bonus was based, was arrived at by taking the average number of
barrels of oil produced in the previous three years, and a bonus was paid for each
barrel obtained. If the set quota was exceeded, an increased bonus was paid. In
December, January and February the sealers worked at the whaling station at
Grytviken and at other times when they weren’t sealing. The majority spent the
winter in Argentina, and returned to South Georgia each spring.
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