The other question that was giving me anxious thought was the size of the shore party.  If the ship had to go out during the winter, or if she broke away from winter quarters, it would be preferable to have only a small, carefully selected party of men ashore after the hut had been built and the stores landed.  These men could proceed to lay out depots by man-haulage and make short journeys with the dogs, training them for the long early march in the following spring.  The majority of the scientific men would live aboard the ship, where they could do their work under good conditions.  They would be able to make short journeys if required, using the ‘Endurance’ as a base.  All these plans were based on an expectation that the finding of winter quarters was likely to be difficult.  If a really safe base could be established on the continent, I would adhere to the original programme of sending one party to the south, one to the west round the head of the Weddell Sea towards Graham Land, and one to the east towards Enderby Land.

We had worked out details of distances, courses, stores required, and so forth.  Our sledging ration, the result of experience as well as close study, was perfect.  The dogs gave promise, after training, of being able to cover fifteen to twenty miles a day with loaded sledges.  The trans-continental journey, at this rate, should be completed in 120 days unless some unforeseen obstacle intervened.  We longed keenly for the day when we could begin this march, the last great adventure in the history of South Polar exploration, but a knowledge of the obstacles that lay between us and our starting-point served as a curb on impatience.  Everything depended upon the landing.  If we could land at Filchner’s base there was no reason why a band of experienced men should not winter there in safety.  But the Weddell Sea was notoriously inhospitable and already we knew that its sternest face was turned toward us.  All the conditions in the Weddell Sea are unfavourable from the navigator’s point of view.  The winds are comparatively light, and consequently new ice can form even in the summer-time.  The absence of strong winds has the additional effect of allowing the ice to accumulate in masses, undisturbed.  Then great quantities of ice sweep along the coast from the east under the influence of the prevailing current, and fill up the bight of the Weddell Sea as they move north in a great semicircle.  Some of this ice doubtless describes almost a complete circle, and is held up eventually, in bad seasons, against the South Sandwich Islands.  The strong currents, pressing the ice masses against the coasts, create heavier pressure than is found in any other part of the Antarctic.  This pressure must be at least as severe as the pressure experienced in the congested North Polar basin, and I am inclined to think that a comparison would be to the advantage of the Arctic.  All these considerations naturally had a bearing upon our immediate problem, the penetration of the pack and the finding of a safe harbour on the continental coast.