VOYAGE THROUGH THE KARA SEA 207 



Wednesday, the 6th of September, was the anniversary 

 of my wedding-day. I was superstitious enough to feel 

 when I awoke in the morning that this day would 

 bring a change, if one were coming at all. The storm 

 had gone down a little, the sun peeped out, and life 

 seemed brighter. The wind quieted down altogether in 

 the course of the afternoon, the weather becoming calm 

 and beautiful. The strait to the north of us, which was 

 blocked before with solid ice, had been swept open by 

 the storm ; but the strait to the east, where we had been 

 with the boat, was firmly blocked, and if we had not 

 turned when we did that evenino^ we should have been 

 there vet, and for no one knows how lonq;. It seemed 

 to us not improbable that the ice between Cape Lapteff 

 and Almquist s Islands might be broken up. We there- 

 fore got up steam and set off north about 6.30 p.m. to 

 try our fortune once more. I felt quite sure that the 

 day would bring us luck. The weather was still beauti- 

 ful, and we were thoroughly enjoying the sunshine. It 

 was such an unusual thing that Nordahl, when he was 

 working among the coals in the hold in the afternoon, 

 mistook a sunbeam falling through the hatch on the coal 

 dust for a plank, and leaned hard on it. He was not 

 a little surprised when he fell right through it on to 

 some iron lumber. 



It became more and more difficult to make anything 

 of the land, and our observation for latitude at noon 

 did not help to clear up matters. It placed us at 76° 2' 



