The silence is oppressive.

There is nothing to do but to stay in one's sleeping-bag, or else wander in the soft snow and become thoroughly wet." Fifteen inches of snow fell in the next twenty-four hours, making over two feet between August 18 and 21.

A slight swell next day from the north-east ground up the pack-ice, but this soon subsided, and the pack became consolidated once more.

On August 27 a strong west- south-west wind sprang up and drove all this ice out of the bay, and except for some stranded bergs left a clear ice-free sea through which we finally made our way from Punta Arenas to Elephant Island.
As soon as I had left the island to get help for the rest of the Expedition, Wild set all hands to collect as many seals and penguins as possible, in case their stay was longer than was at first anticipated.
A sudden rise in temperature caused a whole lot to go bad and become unfit for food, so while a fair reserve was kept in hand too much was not accumulated.
At first the meals, consisting mostly of seal meat with one hot drink per day, were cooked on a stove in the open.

The snow and wind, besides making it very unpleasant for the cook, filled all the cooking- pots with sand and grit, so during the winter the cooking was done inside the hut.
A little Cerebos salt had been saved, and this was issued out at the rate of three-quarters of an ounce per man per week.