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

was measuring the fish on deck during the afternoon minus my waterproof
jacket, a large wave broke over me, leaving me soaked to the skin.
We drifted about 16 miles northwest during the night and headed back
towards Nanortalik for another line of trawl hauls. The coast to the north was
low-lying and blue in the distance, blotted out in parts by local rainstorms.
Ahead was a jagged mountain ridge with many white streams and waterfalls in
the corries. We did two trawl hauls there, but the second one ripped the belly out
of the net and a new net had to be prepared. The first haul had also damaged the
net pretty badly. We marked about 50 fish, and measured a huge cod that was
130 cm long. We dredged with a conical dredge and brought up stones and a
little benthos. I helped Philip (Tallantyre) with the Clarke net. Then, when the
new trawl was shot it snagged almost immediately, a footrope was broken and it
brought up only six fish.
All afternoon and evening there was a thick fog and rain; some bergs were
quite close and one overturned as we watched. We put out an anchored Dhan
buoy, with light and reflector so that we should know our position. Another ship
about a mile away was lit-up and we had a tot of rum before turning in just after
midnight. We lost the Dhan buoy during the night - presumably torn away by a
berg and began shooting the trawl again just after breakfast. I was getting a good
apprenticeship in the realities of the trawlerman’s life.
For the next week we wandered about off the east and west coasts of
Greenland, doing similar work - trawling with otter trawl and Agassiz net,
making stramin net hauls and doing hydrographic work. The weather on the
whole was very good, including some splendidly clear days with wonderful
views of the coastal mountains. There was very little snow and ice to be seen, but
everywhere the landscape pointed to a recent history of glaciation. The ridges
were a mountaineer's paradise, with shear walls, serrated knife-edge ridges and
extensive aiguille formations. Our farthest north was the aptly named Cape
Desolation. We saw many icebergs and one night an extensive and colourful
auroral display. I made several sketches with compass bearings to conspicuous
navigational features of parts of the coastline - Cape Desolation area, Sermersok
and Cape Farewell - for the Admiralty’s Arctic Pilot, which contained no
illustrations of the west coast.
By 11 September we had moved down to the Cape Farewell region again - in
‘flatta’ calm as the Icelanders would say - and found 16 trawlers working in the
lee of Eggers Island, trawling in territorial waters. There was a temperature
inversion layer where the smoke from the trawlers spread out in a thin black
band and was visible from miles away. In the cold layer below the inversion
were startling mirage effects - floating islands, icebergs looking huge, and a
trawler that appeared to be a full-rigged sailing ship. Later we went in amongst
the trawlers. They were making fairly good catches, going round and round in
circles, one behind another. Then two sets of gear became entangled and another
came fast on the bottom. The latter cut his warps because he thought he was
entangled with another vessel’s. When he discovered his mistake the air was
blue!
406