ANTARCTIC BOUND

Hokitika Guardian, 16 December 1933, Page 5

ANTARCTIC BOUND

JACOB RUPPERT

PREPARING FOR ICE STRUGGLE

JACOB RUPPERT, December 14,

The Jacob 'Ruppert is making full speed on a south-easterly course, and her twenty-four hour rim at noon was 240 -miles. The days grow perceptibly longer and colder. -It will be Thursday all day to-morrow, as well as today.

The energies of the crew are being directed to preparing for the impending struggle with the ice pack. One has the feeling of a warship being cleared for action. Admiral Byrd has also issued strict •orders .for the conservation of food and materials. “We are entering the great non-shop area of the world,” he said, '“-and whatever is wasted or lost icannot be replaced.” He scolded a new man who tosstd stray pieces of timber overboard. “You might have to wait a hundred thousand years for +-he Antarctic to produce a piece -or wood that big.” There was another interesting incident to-day aSj steaming ahead, the ship’s bel-l set up a strident clamouring, and upon the bridge the engineroom telegraph was swung full speed ■astern. The whole ship shuddered and men raised themselves from their (bunks, wond-eifing when the crash would come. Then, up from the engineroom came a homeric laugh. An inexperienced hand had struck eight bells, and a vagrant wind had carried the sound to the bridge, where it sounded like an iceberg -alarm from the forecastle head.

MESSAGE FROM WYATT EARP

CONDITIONS ABOARD SHIP.

WTLLINGTON, December 15. Bv radio. Wyatt Earp, from Ellsworth, December 14 : To-day at sp.m. we sighted icebergs, one on either -side in latitude 65.17 south, longtitude, 174.06 east. They were some distance off and appear to be more than a quarter of a mile long, with rugged surfaces. They ■were my first contact with the AntArctic and I was thrilled. They awaken thoughts of danger, but since -it is light the whole night through now, we evpect easily to avoid them. This rimming we had our first snowfall. The temperature is now one degree ‘below freezing. The hospitable weather of yesterday has passed, probably until our return from the Bay of Whales. To-day* heavy clothes were issued to the men.

Although the seasons are reversed in latitudes south of the equator, and it is almost midsummer with us, it in difficult to associate midsummer conditions in civ; latitude with the weather conditions we aJV now experiencing. To the crew of seasoned old whalers aboard, used as they are to going down to the sens .in small ships, we are having a remarkably fine passage.

Our little wild pig has found his (tea Ifegs, and, as regulai' as the watches change every .four hours, he leaves his box to run up : and down the passageway, pausing at mv cabin doer to saue'l at. the top of his lungs for food, end still more food.

The historv of ships getting through the ice pack is interesting. In January, 1908, th> Nimrod, encountering no pack ice, made the passage in twelve hours. In T 896, the Erebus, entering the pack On December 18, took forty-four days to get through the eight hundred miles of pack ice. In 1896, the Southern Cress got through in forty-eight .after entering the pack on December '3D. Norwegian whalers contend that toe best place for entering the pack is between 175 and 189 east longtitude. 1 have set the course for 175, and it necessary, (will wogk further eastwards.”

Two hundred miles of pack ice lies behind the Wyatt Eai’P- Some of the ice is thin, but much of it i s tbi'"k and heavy. Just now she pushing her way through raftered ridges some of which are as high as her bridge* Ahead it seems that even more solid, wide, unbroken floes, through which no steel ship may pass, extend in almost every direction, but the Wyatt E*rp i s proving herself a good ice sill;'. She is wriggling her w-y through narrow cracks.