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

frigate petrel or white-faced storm petrel, Pelagodroma marina, which breeds in
the group.
January 2 was very hot and we didn’t work, but read and talked. I painted
a yellow flower collected in Sao Vicente. Once, while watching the bow wave, I
saw a large medusa about two feet across. Murky plans for the crossing the line
ceremony, were being formulated by the First Mate and others. Next morning I
was on watch from 4 to 8 o’clock and saw the whole unfolding of the dawn,
from the moment when the sky around Capella lightened and made it seem less
bright. We took star sights on alpha Crisus, Aldebaran and Arcturus. I found
the 4 to 8 watch much the most enjoyable as it covered sunrise and sunset, and I
appreciated Tom Miller, the Second Mate's, company. I saw eight Leach's forktailed
petrels together in the afternoon and noted the light brown markings on
the wings, white rump extending round to the flanks on some birds; on some
there was a faint grey mark up the middle of the rump. David and Bill reported
a whale blowing a bushy cloud at 8 o’clock, about half a mile to port. It came
nearer blowing several times - probably a sperm whale. A shark with a high,
pointed dorsal fin appeared and cruised alongside before crossing our wake
and being left astern.
Crossing the Line
A few days later, at night, a dark petrel appeared and flew round and
round the light on the mizzen-mast until finally it hit one of the stays and
fluttered to the deck. We caught it and put it in a box to photograph and paint
the following day, which turned out to be extremely hot and humid. The petrel
was a Leach's fork-tailed petrel; I killed it that afternoon and skinned it (for the
museum) after I had painted it. As we were using the hose on deck, a school of
large dolphins approached the ship and played under the bows. They were
mottled grey-brown except the underside, which was cream-coloured, and they
had short beaks. We played the hose on them which induced the largest to
jump about six feet into the air. In the clear green-blue water they were very
beautiful.
In the evening we put on our concert and it was received with much
applause. Dudley was most mirth provoking, as Stewart Grainger in ‘Rank's
famous four’; a close second came Jock with Robbie Burn's soliloquy on the
Haggis ‘Chieftain o' the pudden race’. Our opera ‘H M S John Biscoe’ went very
well, as did ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ in which I had the part of vile wall! Captain
McFie made a speech of thanks, having enjoyed the evening and endorsed a
wild party lasting until 2 o’clock.
By 6 January, seventeen days into the voyage, we were 55 miles past the
Equator and going ‘downhill’ with the brakes on, that is rather slowly. The
main feature of the day had been the crossing-the-line ceremony for which a
large canvas bath had been made. The Bosun was Neptune and one of the
seamen Aphrodite; the Chief Engineer was the Barber; Doc Slessor the Court
Physician; (George) Barry the Judge Advocate; Jumbo (Nicol), Colonel
Flannelfin the Chief of Police; and there was a supporting cast of Police and
Polar Bears. Dudley was the first victim, then the Second Officer, myself third
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