"
We returned to find everything at Hut Point, including the hut, covered
with frozen spray. This was the result of a blizzard of which we only
felt the tail end on the Barrier. Scott wrote: "The sea was breaking
constantly and heavily on the ice foot. The spray carried right over the
Point--covering all things and raining on the roof of the hut. Poor
Vince's cross, some 30 feet above the water, was enveloped in it. Of
course the dogs had a very poor time, and we went and released two or
three, getting covered in spray during the operation--our wind clothes
very wet. This is the third gale from the South since our arrival here
(i.e. in 21/2 weeks). Any one of these would have rendered the Bay
impossible for a ship, and, therefore, it is extraordinary that we should
have entirely escaped such a blow when the Discovery was in it in
1902."[129]
* * * * *
It is difficult to see long distances across open water at this time of
year because the comparatively warm water throws up into the air a fog,
known as frost-smoke. If there is a wind this smoke is carried over the
surface of the sea, but if calm the smoke rises and forms a dense
curtain. Standing on Arrival Heights, which form the nail of the
finger-like Peninsula on which we now lived, we could see the four
islands which lie near Cape Evans, and a black smudge in the face of the
glaciers which descend from Erebus, which we knew to be the face of the
steep slope above Cape Evans, afterwards named The Ramp.
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