A ship which sets out upon this journey generally has a bad time, and for this reason the overladen state of the Terra Nova was a cause of anxiety.  The Australasian meteorologists had done their best to forecast the weather we must expect.  Everything which was not absolutely necessary had been ruthlessly scrapped.  Yet there was not a square inch of the hold and between-decks which was not crammed almost to bursting, and there was as much on the deck as could be expected to stay there.  Officers and men could hardly move in their living quarters when standing up, and certainly they could not all sit down.  To say that we were heavy laden is a very moderate statement of the facts.

Thursday, December 1, we ran into a gale.  We shortened sail in the afternoon to lower topsails, jib and stay-sail.  Both wind and sea rose with great rapidity, and before the night came our deck cargo had begun to work loose.  “You know how carefully everything had been lashed, but no lashings could have withstood the onslaught of these coal sacks for long.  There was nothing for it but to grapple with the evil, and nearly all hands were labouring for hours in the waist of the ship, heaving coal sacks overboard and re-lashing the petrol cases, etc., in the best manner possible under such difficult and dangerous circumstances.  The seas were continually breaking over these people and now and again they would be completely submerged.  At such times they had to cling for dear life to some fixture to prevent themselves being washed overboard, and with coal bags and loose cases washing about, there was every risk of such hold being torn away.

“No sooner was some semblance of order restored than some exceptionally heavy wave would tear away the lashing, and the work had to be done all over again."[45]

The conditions became much worse during the night and things were complicated for some of us by sea-sickness.  I have lively recollections of being aloft for two hours in the morning watch on Friday and being sick at intervals all the time.  For sheer downright misery give me a hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a bout of sea-sickness.

It must have been about this time that orders were given to clew up the jib and then to furl it.  Bowers and four others went out on the bowsprit, being buried deep in the enormous seas every time the ship plunged her nose into them with great force.  It was an education to see him lead those men out into that roaring inferno.  He has left his own vivid impression of this gale in a letter home.  His tendency was always to underestimate difficulties, whether the force of wind in a blizzard, or the troubles of a polar traveller.  This should be remembered when reading the vivid accounts which his mother has so kindly given me permission to use: