Two quiet days, temperature low in the minus thirties – an occasional rush of wind lasting for but a few minutes.

One of our best sledge dogs, ‘Julick,’ has disappeared. I’m afraid he’s been set on by the others at some distant spot and we shall see nothing more but his stiffened carcass when the light returns. Meares thinks the others would not have attacked him and imagines he has fallen into the water in some seal hole or crack. In either case I’m afraid we must be resigned to another loss. It’s an awful nuisance.

Gran went to C. Royds to-day. I asked him to report on the open water, and so he went on past the Cape. As far as I can gather he got half-way to C. Bird before he came to thin ice; for at least 5 or 6 miles past C. Royds the ice is old and covered with wind-swept snow. This is very unexpected. In the Discovery first year the ice continually broke back to the Glacier Tongue: in the second year it must have gone out to C. Royds very early in the spring if it did not go out in the winter, and in the Nimrod year it was rarely fast beyond C. Royds. It is very strange, especially as this has been the windiest year recorded so far. Simpson says the average has exceeded 20 m.p.h. since the instruments were set up, and this figure has for comparison 9 and 12 m.p.h. for the two Discovery years. There remains a possibility that we have chosen an especially wind-swept spot for our station. Yet I can scarcely believe that there is generally more wind here than at Hut Point.

I was out for two hours this morning – it was amazingly pleasant to be able to see the inequalities of one’s path, and the familiar landmarks bathed in violet light. An hour after noon the northern sky was intensely red.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 1911 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Chapter XII: Awaiting the Crozier Party. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.