+18 F was ideal weather from the Endurance crew's perspective. Cold enough that nothing was melting.
This journal entry by Orde-Lees speaks to Reginald James' comment about how Shackleton "kept his plans elastic."
Orde-Lees Journal
Monday, 1 November 1915
Temperature +18
This morning broke almost as bad as yesterday; snowing and that mysterious diffused light that one has seen nowhere else but here. A light so strange that whilst it is perfectly bright enabling one to see to do things just as on any other day yet the rugged surface of the floe appears as one unbroken flat expanse & only the very tallest hummocks become visible. The sub-features of the surface & the pitfalls beneath one's very feet are absolutely invisible & yet it is not anything like a mistiness in the air whatever.
The impossibility of hauling the boats for any great distance over the present loose surface is so very evident after our strenuous efforts of the last day or two that Sir Ernest has now definitely decided to remain here where we are to subsist on seals & penguins if possible, saving our valuable sledging food and trust to drifting northward with the pack ice. We may do it yet: it all depends on whether we secure sufficient seals & penguins. We got 3 seals today and one yesterday.
There is also the strong probability of leads opening close to us & our being able to row northwards, but wherever we go to we must endeavour to reach either Snow Hill or Paulet Island.
Today we struck camp at 1 p.m. and pitched again about a quarter of a mile further on and about 1 1/2 miles from the wreck but on an apparently firm old floe which is not likely to split for a long time which we have called Ocean Camp.
We shifted the two boats with the utmost difficulty. The surface is terrible, like nothing that any of us had seen before around us. We were sinking at times up to our hips, & everywhere the snow was 2 ft. deep.
So long as we have the bare minimum of food we shall be all right.
Breakfast - Bovril ration (6 rations) i.e. 6 men's rations for 28 men & 2 biscuits each.
Luncheon - Tea, (no milk or sugar) & 1 biscuit.
Dinner - Boiled seal (no salt), 1 biscuit.
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