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

from the stern. One was hauled aboard every twenty minutes and cut up and put
into the factory coming out as oil, meatmeal and meat extract. The contrast with the
living animals in their environment is immense and one forgets that side of it – the
killing – in the hustle and bustle (one has to, for peace of mind). It's a strange
business - quite unbelievable to those who haven't seen it! In marked contrast a very
good film was shown in the evening ‘Mr Denning drives North’ with John Mills and
Phyllis Calvert. We were now in a howling gale with driving snow blocking the port
holes and heavy seas moving the ship about – we were less than eighty miles from
the Antarctic continent at Enderby Land (the nearest land was Proclamation Island)
29 December was quite a busy day after all. I worked on seven whales in a
blizzard on deck - it was very cold on the hands and I felt rather tired that night as I
relaxed from 9.30 pm. The day had been pretty wild - very rough seas, some ice and
wind and snow. I put on my Norwegian fur lined cap for the first time and had the
ear-flaps down. The whalers had found a large lump of ambergris in a sperm whale
the previous day weighing about 50 kilos - so at sh35/- an ounce it was very
valuable. I took a small a chunk of it - about an ounce - for a souvenir. It smelt like
cow-dung (it is in fact whale dung!) but in a year or two, if I kept it, it should have
matured to a pleasant smell; it's used as a base for fixing the scent of the most
expensive perfumes. It comes from the intestines of the Sperm whale and is thought
to form by irritation set up by the hard beaks of the squid on which the whale feeds.
I'm not so sure about that though, I think it may be caused by something quite
different. Setter 3 (which took the last mail out) would be back from Cape Town in a
few days with another mail. Then Biscoe an oil tanker, would join us shortly
afterwards. We were moving eastwards quite rapidly and it now seemed that we'd
be fishing near the Ross Sea after all, just East of the Balleny Islands I expected. So
we would probably return to Cape Town. I worked on seven sperm whales and my
friend Harry Weeks, the British winchman on the after plan, came in for a drink
before supper - and to show me a whale carved from a sperm whale tooth.
Next morning was yet another dull day and we didn't move much, just rolled and
pitched in heavy seas while several of the catchers were bunkering - filling up with
fuel-oil, and various stores. No whales were caught. The old converted catcher Kai
was taking meat meal across to the supply-ship Thule. We had by now seen some of
the really large tabular icebergs but, on the whole, there was very little ice about for
the time of year. The spray of course freezes on the ship building into great chunks,
and sometimes walking across the deck there's a big crash as one of the lumps breaks
off the superstructure and falls to the deck. I printed some photos in the morning and
in the afternoon Jimmy, the lab assistant, gave me a haircut. It was his first attempt
and I taught him as he went along - but it wasn't too painful and the result was
passable. That day I wrote up my notes as usual and worked on the structure of
sperm whale teeth, with a view to using their dentine layering to determine the ages
of the whales.
New Year's Eve went off quite well, but I was quite glad when it was over. I had
Hugh and Mitch in for drinks before the celebrations began. There were only three of
us English there - Hugh, Mitch and myself and the Norwegians were rather stodgy.
The cocktail was quite good - rather like Bunny Fuchs's ‘special’, and roast port for
dinner. Tio Pepe sherry, white and red wine, coffee and liqueurs. Songs afterwards.
The evening finished about 1.30 am. Hugh couldn't remember getting to bed -
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