THROUGH THE ICE PACK

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 December 1928, Page 5

THROUGH THE ICE PACK

SAILING IN ROSS SEA.

STRANGE FORMATION OF BERGS. WHALERS HELP BYRD’S SHIP. (Copyright—-From Byrd Expedition). “We are out of the ice-pack and sailing along in a calm .sea with a blue sky overhead; and the sun so warm that, we. can stay on deck without hat or gloves and not feel uncomfortable,’’ writes Mr Russel Owen, ispecial Press representative on board the City of New York in the Ross Sea. “The pack is •behind us and only one iceberg Shows to the east, (shining white in the sun. “Oddly enough in this lonely sea we see the moke of a ship on the horizon. It is one of those whalers which come here each year. AIL the way across the Pacific we did not- see a single ship, and now we have three large ships and! 15 small chasers moving about within 100 miles of us.

“We came, through the pack in seven and a half days, towed by the Larsen, the big whaler which brought Commander Byrd and tsome of hie men from California to New Zealand. AVe have been towed nearly 2000 miles. The Larsen, of 17,000 tons, goes through the ice every year and we were fortunate in being ab’le to use the pathway it left ahead when its powerful engines forced! aside the ice which we could not have bucked. As a, result we came through quickly and easily, using very little coal, and if the good weather holds we should l>e at the Barrier several! days before it has been, reached bv other expeditions. We hope to be at Disco very Inlet in the ice harrier on Christmas night, but we do not know how much I ice lies between uis and! that point. Tlie barometer i*g high and steady for the/ first- time.- and we hope that it will stay there.

“Our last day in the pack Was ope of the most interesting of the entire trip. The ice was heavy -and with all our manoeuvring we could not avoid some violent collisions. Once we slidl u,p to a- huge floe and scraped along it, trying to ioo around the corner, hut we nearly knocked off our port lifeboat against the top. “We had several false alarms. of sea ahead, and when we actually did meet the edge of the pack it came upon rts so suddenly rtiha-t we were taken by surprise. This was due to several reasons, the mast important of which was the peculiar alignment of the bergs along its edge. For some; time before we readied the bergs we -had seen them outlined against the sky and wondered at their cause. They stretched to- the right and: left of us as far as we could see, small table bergs with perfectly flat tops which rose about thirty feet above, the -water. They formed a; perfect natural wall, which reminded one of the Great Wall of China.

BIG BERGS SMOTHER. SWELL. “As we drew nearer we could see dark water between some of them and realised that we were only a few miles from open water. The heavy bergs had completely stopped the swell which usually warns that the edge of the pack is near, although we learned when we had jjassed them that the Ross Sea was almost as calm as Long Island Sound oil a pleasant summer day. As we drew abreast of this ice rampart, through the opening between two of the largest bergs we 'began to rise and fall on a little swell, and we were outside in the. midst of mushy ice. That ivas to ... seaward of the bergs for upwards of a mile.

“Before us lay the smiling, smooth surface of the Ross Sea, which, after the storms of the higher latitudes and threatening pack-ice, was the pleasantest sight we have ever looked upon. We turned to. look back at the pack, that grim, white wall of bergs, even more imposing from the open water. Beyond them was an unbroken stretch of' white, and the passage through which we-had come might almost have had written upon it, ‘All abandon hope ye who enter here,’ so desolate it looked after our swift release.

“Tho Larsen cut us off, and in a short time the little chasers were dashing away, stretching out like skirmishers looking for whales. In not. more than an hour there was the baiiging of a gun to windward and the fishing bad begun. Again Captain Nilsen of the Larsen came aboard the New York for a moment to bid Commander Byrd farewell and wish him luck, and we toasted him as one of the finest sportsmen and friends we could wish to meet. “In these forsaken waters, busy as he had been, Captain Nilsen has found time to give us good advice and help us in innumerable ways which did not interfere with his operations. He has given us a lot of whale meat, which has been a welcome addition to our fresh meat supply, and we have had it in almost every form George Tennant, our cook, could devise. It seems best cut thin and fried, or chopped with onions in meat balls—tender and as good meat as one could desire. Abouttwo tons of it is hung in our rigging, and some will be dried for use on the trail. It is fed to the dogs as well as the crew, and both arc thriving on it. ‘Pass ’the ivliale’ is one of the phrases at mess at which we have long ■ ceased to laugh. | “Captain Nilsen was of opinion that the berg barrier at the edge of the ice-pack, which he had never seen before, was due to the breaking off of a large but low piece of the barrier ice which had floated to the edge of the pack before disintegrating.’’