6 ' ' MARION ' ' EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



all of US Avere now to be busily employed for the ensuin<j: ei^rht weeks 

 with little cessation. All hands except the two commissioned officers 

 were green to the station work, and therefore plenty of time was 

 devoted to patiently instructing the crew in their various duties. 

 Since the station work was to be pushed from now on, day and night, 

 as the main task of the expedition, the men were divided into three 

 watches with a team on each watch consisting, as a rule, of three 

 members — winchman, recorder, and platform man. Good station 

 work requires practice, experience, and cooperation from all, as the 

 slightest blimder or mistake on the part of any member of the team 

 may mean the loss of a valuable instrument, or errors creeping into 

 the observations, or, most common of all, undue delay. A false move 

 made near the end of an oceanographic station often necessitates the 

 retakino: of the entire set of observations. 



BATTLE llAKBUK. LABKADUK 



Figure 5. — We entered Battle Harbor, Labrador, on the evening of July 19. 192S. This 

 is a small fishing settlement on the north side of the Strait of Belle Isle. Here we 

 saw Eskimo dogs and Arctic mosses and flowers for the first time. 



Regular half-hourly fathometer soundings began to be taken for 

 record as soon as the vessel had passed to the eastward through the 

 Strait of Belle Isle. Many sounding values had been taken previously 

 for navigational purposes and for practice, but south of Belle Isle 

 the charts already contained many plotted soundings and did not 

 need to be improved by additional carefully located values like the 

 blanker, less detailed, charts of the north. 



The first real oceanographic station of the cruise was close to the 

 northeast end of Belle Isle (ice patrol station No. 936; see Coast 

 Guard Bulletin 19, pt. 2), and thence, a line of three stations was 

 taken to a point just south of Battle Harbor, Labrador. These 

 afforded the crew good practice in the correct procedure to follow^ in 

 handling the sounding weights, Avires, bottles, and messengers. 



The Marion moored for three hours at Battle Harbor, Labrador, 

 on the evening of July 19. Our water tank was topped off with fresh 

 water by placing the Mwrion's forefoot lightly against the harbor's 



