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

suspected it might have been the result of heavy drinking the night before.
There was still little sign of the crew except at ‘smokoe’ (tea or coffee break) and
meal times; otherwise they seemed to keep to their bunks. I spent the morning
issuing boots and clearing out the Wardroom, which was in a mess. After lunch
the usual jobs kept us busy: cleaning decks, lashing down stores, rigging
shelves, lights and tables in our cabin. I found a spare piece of wood for a
drawing board and smoothed it with a file and emery paper. Together with
Derek I filled the last water-tanks in the Carley floats (life rafts) and the boats
were lashed down.
We were treated to a very colourful and spectacular sunset. Ranks of low
stratus cloud were tinted salmon pink and Derek and I amused ourselves by
pointing out various potential climbing routes up buttresses of clouds. Some
looked very like climbs we knew - Tower Ridge, Ben Nevis; Kern Knotts - with
Sepulchre and Buttonhook; Scafell Central Buttress and so on. By sunset we
were off Margate and, with both engines running now, making relatively rapid
progress down the Channel. Dover was brightly illuminated and it was
possible to see the cliffs and Castle clearly, because we were quite near the shore
and the moon was bright. A large evening meal followed, chats with Mac and
various members of the crew - and then scrounging tea and bread in the galley.
For the first time I saw the dropping of a pilot - off Dungeness. A small launch
came alongside and the Pilot, perched precariously on a rope-ladder leaped into
it, his bag being swung down after him on a rope. The Royal Sovereign light
was showing when I turned in.
Next day I was on the Bosun's work party during the morning - lashing
down the anchors and then swabbing down the wooden decks. The sun came
out and for a few hours several of us sat at the stern, watching the gulls in the
wake - herring gulls, a few common, lesser and greater-black-backed, several
immature herring and some immature black-headed. We came to recognize one
gull from a peculiar feather pattern, continuously hovering over the galley, the
sun shining through its wings and lighting them up as if from within. They
kept to a constant beat, gliding forwards on the port side, alongside us, then
swooping down, around and soaring up across the stern. The manœuvre was
accomplished with very little movement of the wings. Occasionally some refuse
was thrown out of the galley on the starboard side, or the propeller, passing
through a shoal of fish, would stun them and the gulls would alight on the
water, wings beating, to snatch a tasty morsel. If there was a particularly good
harvest of tidbits the crowd of gulls dropped astern to be lost to sight. But they
always caught up with us again.
In the cabin I put some pictures up above my bunk and created a
hammock of rope for loose belongings. The weather was beginning to roughen
and the ship to roll heavily and pitch violently. Several people were down with
seasickness by tea time - and there was a shortage of bread. We passed Sark,
Alderney and Guernsey and, after dark, the Isle de Bas light. We expected it
would take 36 hours to cross the dreaded Bay of Biscay and the sea was
roughening.
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