On Saturday, March 4, the day before we met that large collection of bergs, the temperature fell pretty rapidly from 33.9deg.  F. to 32.5deg.  F. We had not then seen ice for nearly twenty-four hours.  At the same time the colour of the water became unusually green, and it is possible that we had come into a cold current.  The temperature remained as low as this till Sunday morning, when at 8 a. m. it rose to 32.7deg.  F.; at 12 noon, close to a berg, to 32.9deg.  F., and a mile to lee of it, to 33deg.  F. It continued to rise, and at 4 p.m., when the bergs were thickest, it was 33.4deg.  F.; at 8 p.m. 33.6deg.  F., and at midnight 33.8deg.  F. If there had been a fog, we should certainly have thought we were leaving the ice instead of approaching it; it is very curious, too, that the temperature of the water should not be more constant in the presence of such a great quantity of ice; but, as I have said, it may have been a current.

In the course of the week following March 5 the bergs became rarer, but the same kind of weather prevailed.  Our speed was irreproachable, and in one day’s work (from noon to noon) we covered a distance of 200 nautical miles, or an average of about 82 knots an hour, which was the best day’s work the Fram had done up to that time.  The wind; which had been westerly and north-westerly, went by degrees to the north, and ended in a hurricane from the north-east on Sunday, March 12.  I shall quote here what I wrote about this in my diary on the 13th: 

“Well, now we have experienced the first hurricane on the Fram.  On Saturday afternoon, the 11th, the wind went to the north-east, as an ordinary breeze with rain.  The barometer had been steady between 29.29 inches (744 millimetres) and 29.33 inches (745 millimetres).  During the afternoon it began to fall, and at 8 p.m. it was 29.25 inches (743 millimetres) without the wind having freshened at all.  The outer jib was taken in, however.  By midnight the barometer had fallen to 29.0 inches (737 millimetres), while the wind had increased to a stiff breeze.  We took in the foresail, mainsail, and inner jib, and had now only the topsail and a storm-trysail left.  The wind gradually increased to a gale.  At 4 a.m. on Sunday the barometer had fallen again to 28.66 inches (728 millimetres), and at 6 a.m. the topsail was made fast.[3]

The wind increased and the seas ran higher, but we did not ship much water.  At 8 a.m. the barometer was 28.30 inches (719 millimetres), and at 9 a.m. 28.26 inches (718 millimetres), when at last it stopped going down and remained steady till about noon, during which time a furious hurricane was blowing.  The clouds were brown, the colour of chocolate; I cannot remember ever having seen such an ugly sky.  Little by little the wind went to the north, and we sailed large under two storm-trysails.  Finally, we had the seas on our beam, and now the Fram showed herself in all her glory as the best sea-boat in the world.