OCEAN CAMP 
I decided to conserve our valuable sledging rations, which 
would be so necessary for the inevitable boat journey, as much 
as possible, and to subsist almost entirely on seals and penguins. 
A party was sent back to Dump Camp, near the ship, to 
collect as much clothing, tobacco, etc., as they could find. 
The heavy snow wliich had fallen in the last few days, combined 
with the thawing and consequent sinking of the surface, resulted 
in the total disappearance of a good many of the things left 
behind at this dump. The remainder of the men made them- 
selves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances at 
Ocean Camp. This floating lump of ice, about a mile square 
at first but later splitting into smaller and smaller fragments, 
was to be our home for nearly two months. During these two 
montlis we made frequent visits to the vicinity of the ship and 
retrieved much valuable clothing and food and some few articles 
of personal value which in oru: light-hearted optimism we had 
thought to leave miles behind us on our dash across the moving 
ice to safety. 
The collection of food was now the all-important considera- 
tion. As we were to subsist almost entirely on seals and 
penguins, which were to provide fuel as well as food, some form 
of blubber-stove was a necessity. This was eventually very 
ingeniously contrived from the ship's steel ash-shoot, as our 
first attempt with a large iron oil-drum did not prove eminently 
successful. We could only cook seal or penguin hooshes or 
stews on this stove, and so uncertain was its action that the 
food was either biKnt or only partially cooked ; and, hungry 
though we were, half-raw seal meat was not very appetizing. 
On one occasion a wonderful stew made from seal meat, with 
two or three tins of Irish stew that had been salved from ■■ he 
ship, fell into the fire through the bottom of the oil-drum that 
we used as a saucepan becoming burnt out on account of the 
sudden intense heat of the fire below. We lunched that day 
on one biscuit and a quarter of a tin of bully-beef each, frozen 
hard. 
This new stove, which was to last us during our stay at 
Ocean Camp, was a great success. Two large holes were 
punched, with much labour and few tools, opposite one another 
8 
