The conditions became harder on December 14.  There was a misty haze, and occasional falls of snow.  A few bergs were in sight.  The pack was denser than it had been on the previous days.  Older ice was intermingled with the young ice, and our progress became slower.  The propeller received several blows in the early morning, but no damage was done.  A platform was rigged under the jib-boom in order that Hurley might secure some kinematograph pictures of the ship breaking through the ice.  The young ice did not present difficulties to the ‘Endurance’, which was able to smash a way through, but the lumps of older ice were more formidable obstacles, and conning the ship was a task requiring close attention.  The most careful navigation could not prevent an occasional bump against ice too thick to be broken or pushed aside.  The southerly breeze strengthened to a moderate south-westerly gale during the afternoon, and at 8 p.m. we hove to, stem against a floe, it being impossible to proceed without serious risk of damage to rudder or propeller.  I was interested to notice that, although we had been steaming through the pack for three days, the north-westerly swell still held with us.  It added to the difficulties of navigation in the lanes, since the ice was constantly in movement.

The ‘Endurance’ remained against the floe for the next twenty-four hours, when the gale moderated.  The pack extended to the horizon in all directions and was broken by innumerable narrow lanes.  Many bergs were in sight, and they appeared to be travelling through the pack in a south-westerly direction under the current influence.  Probably the pack itself was moving north-east with the gale.  Clark put down a net in search of specimens, and at two fathoms it was carried south-west by the current and fouled the propeller.  He lost the net, two leads, and a line.  Ten bergs drove to the south through the pack during the twenty-four hours.  The noon position was 61° 31´ S., long. 18° 12´ W. The gale had moderated at 8 p.m., and we made five miles to the south before midnight and then we stopped at the end of a long lead, waiting till the weather cleared.  It was during this short run that the captain, with semaphore hard-a-port, shouted to the scientist at the wheel:  “Why in Paradise don’t you port!” The answer came in indignant tones:  “I am blowing my nose.”

The ‘Endurance’ made some progress on the following day.  Long leads of open water ran towards the south-west, and the ship smashed at full speed through occasional areas of young ice till brought up with a heavy thud against a section of older floe.  Worsley was out on the jib-boom end for a few minutes while Wild was conning the ship, and he came back with a glowing account of a novel sensation.  The boom was swinging high and low and from side to side, while the massive bows of the ship smashed through the ice, splitting it across, piling it mass on mass and then shouldering it aside.