54 DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN 



We could not quite keep the course proposed, as the weather took 

 charge of us a bit sometimes and no mistake. I will endeavour to give 

 a few particulars of the trip. 



We were pretty deep in the water when we left Bergen on the after- 

 noon of the 9th February, every available hole and corner being crammed 

 full of coal ; consequently we got a bit of a washing that night. We 

 had a hard gale dead ahead, but managed all the same to take up three 

 stations before she refused to look at it about midnight of the loth. 

 All the nth we lay hove-to, though we were able to take up one station ; 

 and on the I2th we stopped the engines to save coal, and got sail on 

 her. Not till the afternoon of the 13th did the sea and wind go down 

 enough for us to continue our course. During this storm we had 

 frequent spits of snow and shipped a lot of water. To enable us to take 

 up our stations we stretched a rope from davit to davit along the whole 

 of the starboard side where we had to work. We did this to have 

 something to hold on to, and so save us from being washed overboard. 

 Koefoed was given a rope to tie round him, which fastened him like a 

 dog to the davit where he worked. Otherwise everything was all right, 

 except that the sheet of the mainsail parted so that the sail was damaged 

 and a couple of thermometers were smashed. An interesting sight was 

 a school of bottle-nose whales which we observed in lat. 63° 3' N., long. 

 2° 44' E. They were seven in number, most of them being males, 

 " barrel hoops." 



On the 14th and 15th we had good weather with little snow, so we 

 made excellent progress northwards and took up a few stations. On 

 the morning of the i6th we had clear weather and could see the ice- 

 blink, the water at the same time becoming cold. After taking up a 

 station during the night just clear of the ice we steamed through ice- 

 floes all the next morning. We saw Jan Mayen in the distance, but the 

 ice lay thick all round it. About midday we had to look sharp and get 

 out again, as the wind increased to a gale, accompanied by severe frost 

 and remarkable shrouds of mist, which assumed the most fantastic 

 shapes and were constantly in motion. I have never seen anything like 

 them before. We shaped our course for Vesteraalen, and got sail on 

 her to steady her a bit. The whole of the afternoon we were pretty 

 well cased with ice— hull, spars, and standing rigging — and on running 

 suddenly into the middle of an ice-floe about nine o'clock that evening 

 we had a hard job to get the ship round against the wind, her sails 

 being so stiff with ice that it was impossible to take them in. However, 

 we managed gradually to get her bows up against a large cake of ice 

 and brought her round with the help of the engines. There was just 

 room to turn her and that was all. We then set our course back the 

 way we had come, and so got clear. 



The stations we took up during the severe frost were the reverse of 

 easy, as the metre-wheels froze up, and we had to keep them warm 

 with thick, red-hot iron bars that were brought from the engine-room 

 and held close to the wheel-axles. 



On the night of the 17th we ran into another storm, which lasted 

 till we arrived in port. 



On the 19th, at midday, we saw land, but were unable to make it 



