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 months 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 our 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 consideration.

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 burnt or only partially cooked; and, hungry though we were, half-raw seal meat was not very appetizing.