Saturday, 14 October 1911

Amundsen

"Now we are ready again," wrote Bjaaland. "I hope it won't be a fiasco like the last time. I think that the prospects are better now than on the previous occasion. The dog teams are strong and the equipment is very good. We ought to go far in 100 days. If I emerge unscathed from this journey, I must see that I get out of polar exploration. It's hardly worth the trouble. So farewell Framheim and people and an easy life and if I should be caught out there, well, my tenderest wishes to friends and acquaintances, my fellow-countrymen and the Fatherland." [1]

Gales and fog the following afternoon, however, delayed the start still longer.

"Amundsen," Hassel noted, "has not spoken a word to Johansen since the big day of reckoning, with the exception of their one-on-one talks on the matter." [2]


Notes:

[1] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 15 October, 1911, quoted by Roland Huntford in Race for the South Pole : the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen (London : Continuum, c2010), p.75.
[2] Sverre Hassel, diary, 15 October, 1911, in Dagboksnotater fra Sydpolen (Skien : Vågemots miniforlag, 1997), p.8.