The weather is still calm, and the seal-boat does not row very far away from the vessel. One could not imagine a calmer night. The barren landscape is as still as death. The only noise that we can hear is an occasional clang from the boat when an oar strikes the ice. The echo of it rolls from cliff to cliff along the coast. The sky is cloudless, but the atmosphere is hazy, so that the sun, which blazes high in the north, appears distant and unreal. The cliffs with their icy crests are reflected in the water. We hang over the side and gaze upon it all. It would be delightful if only we knew that the six airmen were safe. It is Riiser-Larsen’s birthday. We remember a remark of his early in May, “Now we must _really_ start so that I can spend my birthday at home in Norway.” _“Hobby.” Monday, June 8th_ There is not a great difference between night and day up here. When we went on deck in the morning the sun was shining from another part of the sky, otherwise everything was as before. The birds, after having taken two hours’ rest at midnight, were also full of activity. Auks in dress-coats and white shirts are still in full flight and whizz in flocks upon flocks from the land to the open sea in order to catch food. Black guillemots and little auks fly madly away, their direction being determined by the higher air currents. Sea gulls rest on their wings and keep moving round and round the boat, waiting for the steward to heave the contents of the rubbish bin overboard. They hover untiringly, hour after hour, though now and then one hears a beat of their wings when they have to change from one air-current to another. During the night a seal-boat has come along--it lies some hundreds of meters away from us and we pass alongside of it. We row up to it and explain “Hobby’s” mission up here--the captain promises to keep a good lookout for our airmen and also to warn any other “sealers” he may possibly get into touch with. No doubt there will be plenty of them up here as the conditions for making good catches are specially promising this year. (We can _already_ see the mast-tops of another boat appearing on the horizon.) We also request the captain to warn those trappers who spend the winter in the huts along the north coast, if some of them by chance should visit him. He promises this, and as a farewell gift gets some packages of tobacco, because his supply is low, for his boat has been a long time at sea.