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

predominantly under water for an hour or so on the gun platform. The other boats
did better, mainly because, having gone to the ice and being unsuccessful there, we
were late in arriving among the fins. I saw several parties of terns, a few lightmantled
sooty albatrosses, a few Antarctic petrels, a giant petrel, Wilson’s storm
petrel, moderate numbers of snow petrels.
We were once again in the open sea, catching fin whales. Chased several but
broke off and headed towards Ellefsen who was among many fins; we took four.
The weather looked threatening again, so we headed South towards the ice for
shelter. It was very calm just within the ice edge, with many snow petrels, Wilson's
petrels and some Antarctic petrels in the brash ice. I saw a Ross seal on a floe and
many Adélie penguins in small groups, about fifty in all. In one of the bights in the
pack ice four humpbacks appeared ahead, rolling lazily about in the flat calm water,
flapping their long, grotesque flippers and throwing their flukes up into the air. We
took two - a huge female and a smaller male. Both lines were out at the same time.
The first of them was really huge, encrusted with many barnacles. We flagged them
and left them at the ice edge. The other two we could not take because the day's
quota of six was filled. We saw several fins, which we chased and lost and were
chasing two blues at 3 o’clock, when the signal for ‘stopp fangst’ came. So we went
back to pick up the humpbacks and took them in to Balaena. Hem shot another
Adélie penguin, which I skinned for him later. We had the usual drinks and talk
before turning in for the night.
It was "fri fangst" again from 6 am and we went down to the ice again. A signal
came saying that each boat could take two more and we got our two very easily from
among the hundreds about us. Hem decided to go in to the factory for more
harpoons and needed fuel and I went back on board Balaena again - back to the smell
and dirt after a really wonderful, adventurous week on ‘Setter 9’. I had enjoyed it all -
even the storm, though that probably more in retrospect than at the time. It was an
experience not to be missed, although it had its downsides, not least the deaths of
these magnificent animals.
They were still talking about the storm on the factory ship. I found most of my
books ‘soggo’, instruments thick with rust and everything ‘higgledi– piggledi’! Even
so I never saw it at its worst because my good friend Harry Weeks (the AB) had
cleaned up most of the damage. It was very kind of him. With a friend of his (Leo,
the Irishman - the one he planned to go into partnership with at home) he'd worked
like a slave all night mopping up the water and clearing up the broken glassware.
Most important - and what took most of the time, he washed all my photographic
negatives (including microphotographs of elephant seal tissues that I needed for my
FIDS scientific reports) and hung them up, in order, to dry. Unfortunately, a jar of
iodine-crystals had been smashed in the general upheaval and that had ruined many
of the recent negatives taken on Balaena. It is so discouraging. But for Harry’s efforts,
the whole lot would have been ruined. He was a sterling character.
I was told what had happened on board Balaena during the storm. She's a big
ship, 23,000 tons, but was tossed around and at one time did a 37 degree roll! That
was when everything came off the shelves in the labs. Books, glassware, records,
specimen jars, chemicals, including a gallon of concentrated sulphuric acid made a
grand jamboree on the deck. Nor was that all, for water came in through the
ventilating system and lay about six inches deep on the floor. "Lay" was not the right
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