Spring – The Cape Jeremy Affair – Shaun Norman
In September 1968, after six months around base, four of us set off southwards towards field base Fossil Bluff for a summer’s work. Alistair would work with Ian Flavell-Smith on a geophysics trip whilst I was to accompany geologist Lew Willey who did not have a dog team.
We left Stonners with heavy – 1200lb/550kg – loads. The lead team – which changed each day – carried less and blazed trail whilst teams two and three carried larger loads. Juggling loads between teams was a constant process and if a team was having a hard time and holding up progress, the others would come and take a food box to help out. Every team had its off days as well as its lively days.
All went well for the first days and we travelled south over good sea-ice past the Terra Firma Islands and other island groups, picking up supplies from depots as we used up man and dog food and kerosene.
It is perhaps interesting to note here that communication with UK did exist, but only in a very basic form. Intercontinental voice (telephone) connection did not exist and the favoured form was Morse code, received and sent by our radio operator. All of our monthly reports to ‘London’ were reduced to the most concise and woe betide any Base Commander who got too wordy!
Continued from Stonington 1968
An exception was the 100-word home newsletter, both sent and received, that each base member was allowed every month. Whilst on base, one could give the radio op. a letter for private transmission and receive similar from home. In the field it was a different story as everyone was on voice on the same radio frequency. You could be quite sure that other field people would be listening in and anyone who constantly received news about the garden and the new daffodils (me!) got heckled unmercifully by his peers. Sometimes, if the newsletter contained delicate matters, the radio op. would ask if the field member wanted it read out or kept. Quite tricky.
We were making for King George VI Sound which separates Alexander Island from the Antarctic Peninsula. Once in the Sound, we would be on shelf ice and much more secure than out on the thin annual sea ice.
At Cape Jeremy in south Marguerite Bay we encountered broken ice with many open leads, some only just refrozen. Thinking this was just a local phenomenon we pushed on. There was an appalling amount of work required to zigzag on firm ground, cut a track at times and then shuttle light loads back and forth over thin new ice which sometimes flexed as you skied over it – very frightening as there was 1000ft/300m of cold sea immediately below that ice!
Our belief that this chaos would soon be passed was unfounded and we camped after one awful nine-hour day of sweating, heaving and cursing whilst encouraging the dogs over dubious ground. We had completed the grand distance of 2.4 miles/4km!
We selected the most solid-looking ice floe for our camp and reached it over a 20ft/6m wide refrozen lead. Late in the night I awoke to hear my leader Princess whimpering and looked out to see a huge bank of ice chips towering over her – this was all that remained of the wide lead. All the sea ice was on the move in some mysterious fashion and we were trapped in the middle of it.
Just to add to our joys a warm storm with temperatures close to 0°c started, and kept us tent-bound in ultra-soggy conditions. With 4ft/1.2m of wet new snow fallen, the tent sat lower and water was coming up through the floor. We took food boxes inside, thus raising our beds 1ft/30cm. Not knowing how long we would be trapped, we cut our kero usage to snow melting only for drinks and cooking. The Tilley lamp with its light and warmth was banned and we slowly got damper. Man and dog food were also rationed.
Finally, after many gloomy days the sun shone again. Late that afternoon we dug and dug in warmth, drying clothes and gear and excavating sledges from deep, dank imprisonment in the salty sea ice. The dogs luxuriated in the warmth and appeared to have suffered no ill-effects. As they walked around, each one had packed the snow down and had a nice mound which kept them clear of the slush.
That evening’s dig raised spirits but with almost no supplies and no sign of a viable route south we cast about for a way to return home. Compass bearings confirmed our floe had shifted some distance during the storm. A mighty berg was slowly but surely ploughing a route towards us through the sea-ice. I should say here that whereas sea ice, on the surface, is moved mainly by wind and tide, icebergs are hundreds of feet deep and moved by deep ocean currents. To this day we do not know what caused that berg to stop. Possibly it had struck bedrock – the bottom of the Sound. Had it reached us, unable to move off our ice pan, who knows what could have happened.
Next morning, still in fine weather, I led off towards Cape Jeremy and, we hoped, more stable ice. I had a few heart-stopping moments as I whistled up the team for speed to cross open, working cracks in the ice. Princess performed brilliantly and ran fast and straight over some leads three and four feet wide, using the pieces of broken ice as stepping stones. The last dogs had to swim and get pulled ashore by the leaders running on. I would jump onto the sledge at the last second and managed to keep my feet dry. The ice improved over a few hours and we breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Foremost in our minds during our days on the moving ice had been the prospect of being blown out to sea should the wind turn southerly. This horrible fate overtook some people sledging at Argentine Islands some years before and we had no wish to emulate them.
During this worrying time we had had fairly constant radio contact with base. On Alistair’s instruction a week earlier, Stonington radio had advised BAS London of our predicament and requested any information Sir Vivian Fuchs, who had travelled this way, could supply. We also requested food and fuel be brought south by teams still at base. (See The Great Puffballs Rescue/Jolly – Stonington 1968 which follows). There was a grand reunion and a big feast for men and dogs when we met the relief teams later that day.
The mangled sea ice we found brought an early and unexpected end to all our southern sledging plans for the 1968/69 season. Virtually all teams had their sights on Fossil Bluff and even further south. Now we had to return to base and redraw the work schedule.
© Shaun Norman: Deception – Met 1967, Stonington – GA 1968, BC/GA 1969