WesWorld

Quoted

28 February 1923

The Meteorological Survey of India’s Antarctic mission has ended three weeks early, after its ship was damaged in a collision with pack ice. Kamal Pashira, the survey’s director, said, “The ship and crew were in no immediate danger but we played it safe anyway and sent the ship to Durban for repairs.

The dispatch to Durban was not surprising, as the ship made a brief stop in late December to the South African port to take on a small scientific team from the University of Durban. “It was an excellent opportunity to expand the mission to include flora and fauna studies”, enthused Mr. Pashira. “The South African team came aboard to examine the aquatic and avian populations of the Antarctic and we found some potentially interesting connections between their work and our climate observations.”

Not all of the mission was spent strictly on work. “On New Year’s Eve many of the crew boated over to a large floe and celebrated with a football game between the South African researchers and a team of Indian scientists and crewmen. I’m sad to say that although India scored twice late in 1922, the South Africans came back with four goals in 1923 to win by a final score of 4 to 3.”

Quoted

Penguinistan