Monday, 2 January 1911

Amundsen

The Fram crossed the Antarctic Circle, and found the water free of ice further south than anyone before had done. Amundsen's close study of the published records had led him to the conclusion that there was a passage at the point where the pack was slackest and narrowest, and that at that time of the year this point was probably a few degrees west of the 180th Meridian. Other than noting these conclusions, though, he let Beck take charge of their course.

"We have now found the sea free of ice further South than anyone else," Amundsen wrote in his diary. "But -- we will meet it in the end." [1]


Notes:

[1] Roald Amundsen, diary, 2 January, 1911, quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.72.