We did wretchedly in October —­ calms and east winds, nothing but east winds; as regards distance it was the worst month we had had since leaving Norway, notwithstanding that the Fram had been in dry dock, had a clean bottom and a light cargo.  When close-hauled with any head sea, we scarcely move; a stiff fair wind is what is wanted if we are to get on.  Somebody said we got on so badly because we had thirteen pigs on board; another said it was because we caught so many birds, and I had caught no less than fourteen albatrosses and four Cape pigeons.  Altogether there is quite enough of what I will call superstition at sea.  One particular bird brings fine weather, another storms; it is very important to notice which way the whale swims or the dolphin leaps; the success of seal-hunting depends on whether the first seal is seen ahead or astern, and so on.  Enough of that.

October went out and November came in with a fresh breeze from the south-south-west, so that we did nine and a half knots.  This promised well for November, but the promise was scarcely fulfilled.  We had northerly wind or southerly wind continually, generally a little to the east of north or south, and I believe I am not saying too much when I state that in the “west wind belt” with an easterly course we lay close-hauled on one tack or the other for about two-thirds of the way.  For only three days out of three months did we have a real west wind, a wind which, with south-westerly and north-westerly winds, I had reckoned on having for 75 per cent. of the trip from Buenos Aires to about the longitude of Tasmania.

In my enthusiasm over the west wind in question, I went so far as to write in my diary at 2 a.m. on November 11:  “There is a gale from the west, and we are making nine knots with foresail and topsail.  The sea is pretty high and breaking on both sides of the vessel, so that everything about us is a mass of spray.  In spite of this, not a drop of water comes on deck, and it is so dry that the watch are going about in clogs.  For my part I am wearing felt slippers, which will not stand wet.  Sea-boots and oilskins hang ready in the chart-house, in case it should rain.  On a watch like to-night, when the moon is kind enough to shine, everyone on deck is in the best of humours, whistling, chattering, and singing.  Somebody comes up with the remark that ’She took that sea finely,’ or ‘Now she’s flying properly.’  ‘Fine’ is almost too feeble an expression; one ought to say ‘lightly and elegantly’ when speaking of the Fram . . . .  What more can one wish?” etc.

But whatever time Adam may have spent in Paradise, we were not there more than three days, and then the same wretched state of things began again.  What I wrote when there was a head wind or calm, I should be sorry to reproduce.  Woe to him who then came and said it was fine weather.

It was lucky for us that the Fram sails so much more easily now than in 1910, otherwise we should have taken six months to reach the Barrier.  When we had wind, we used it to the utmost; but we did not do this without the loss of one or two things; the new jib-sheet broke a couple of times, and one night we carried away the outer bobstay of the jib-boom.  The foresail and topsail were neither made fast nor reefed during the whole trip.