BYRD’S SHIP

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1928, Page 5

BYRD’S SHIP

MEETS WHALERS

(Copyright.—Byrd’s Expedition.)

ROSS SEA. December 28

Owen, on board the New York, in I toss Sea, writes: “ We are out of the ice pack, sailing along in a calm sea, with a bine sky overhead,, and the sun so warm that we can stay on dock without bat or gloves, and not feel uncomfortable. r flie pack is behind ns, and only one iceberg shows to the cast, shining white in the sun. And, oddly enough, in this lonely sea. we see the smoko of a ship on the horizon. If is one of those whalers, which come here each year. All the wav across the Pacific wo did not see a single ship, and now we have three large ships and fifteen small chasers moving about within one hundred miles ot us. We came through the ice pack in seven and a-lialf days, towed by the Larsen, the big whaler which brought Com»)■<uder Ifvrd and some of his men from California to New Zealand. Me have been towed nearly two thousand miles. The Larsen, of 17,000 tons, gees through the ice every year, and we were fortunate in being able to use the pathway it left ahead when its powerful engines forced aside the ice, which wo could not have bucked. As a result, we came through quickly, and easily, using very little coal, and it the good weather bolds, we should be at the Barrier several days before it has been reached by the other expeditions. We hope to be at Discovery Tnlet, in the ice barrier, on Christmas 'night, but we don’t know how much ice lies between us and that point. The barometer is high and steady for the first time, and we hope it will stay there.”