CHAPTER I 
INTO THE WEDDELL SEA 
I HAD decided to leave South Georgia about December 5, and 
in the intervals of final preparation scanned again the plans 
for the voyage to winter quarters. What welcome was the 
Weddell Sea preparing for us ? The whaling captains at South 
Georgia were geDerously ready to share with me their knowledge 
of the waters in which they pursued their trade, and, while 
confirming earlier information as to the extreme severity of 
the ice conditions in this sector of the Antarctic, they were 
able to give advice that was worth attention. 
; It will be convenient to state here briefly some of the con- 
siderations that weighed with me at that time and in the 
weeks that followed. I knew that the ice had come far north 
that season, and, after listening to the suggestions of the 
whaling captains, had decided to steer to the South Sandwich 
Group, round Ultima Thule, and work as far to the eastward 
as the fifteenth meridian west longitude before pushing south. 
The whalers emphasized the difficulty of getting through the 
ice in the neighbourhood of the South Sandwich Group. They 
told me they had often seen the floes come right up to the 
group in the summer-time, and they thought the Expedition 
would have to push through heavy pack in order to reach the 
Weddell Sea. Probably the best time to get into the Weddell 
Sea would be the end of February or the beginning of March. 
The whalers had gone right round the South Sandwich Group 
and they were familiar with the conditions. The predictions 
they made had induced me to take the deck-load of coal, for 
if we had to fight our way through to Coats' Land we would 
need every ton of fuel the ship could carry. 
I hoped that by first moving to the east as far as the fifteenth 
meridian west we would be able to go south through looser ice, 
A 1 
