Elephant Island
Last night the winds reached gale force, with a very confused sea. Tucked up safe and warm in a 300’ long, 3000-ton ship, who could not think of 6 frozen men, dripping with saltwater, stretched out on their boulder ballast in a 22’ boat, braving 800 miles of the tumbling southern ocean? In crossing from South Georgia, we have retraced their 17-day ordeal in only 2 days.
First thing this morning, there is land in sight. Huge swells explode into spray off a rocking iceberg as we close with Clarence Island. An hour later we can see the forbidding coast of Elephant Island, their initial salvation. Jagged, gleaming, white-toothed mountains, sheer rock slopes and snub-nosed glaciers line its formidable coast. When Shackleton’s men landed at the eastern end of the island, it was their first landfall for 497 days. They had drifted for 9 months in their trapped ship Endurance, watched it crushed and swallowed by the Weddell sea-ice, then drifted north for another 5 ½ months before taking to their tiny flotilla of boats as the pack disintegrated. When they reached solid land on Elephant Island, they kissed the beach in relief. Short-lived, for their first landing site would be swept by waves at high tide. Frank Wild found them a marginally safer raised beach here at the rugged outcrop which still bears his name.
When Shackleton set off 6 days later in the James Caird, he knew no-one would find them on this forgotten island. Today we were thinking of the 22 men he left behind, who must try and survive through a second winter on the wave-lashed boulder beach before us. The last penguins were leaving, a few seals were caught, Shackleton had gone.... We spent an hour in our Zodiacs, staring at this sacred site, the lonely beach a monument to man’s determination to survive. They spent 137 days huddled under their flimsy boats, waiting for the Boss to return. And return he did. What a story.
Last night the winds reached gale force, with a very confused sea. Tucked up safe and warm in a 300’ long, 3000-ton ship, who could not think of 6 frozen men, dripping with saltwater, stretched out on their boulder ballast in a 22’ boat, braving 800 miles of the tumbling southern ocean? In crossing from South Georgia, we have retraced their 17-day ordeal in only 2 days.
First thing this morning, there is land in sight. Huge swells explode into spray off a rocking iceberg as we close with Clarence Island. An hour later we can see the forbidding coast of Elephant Island, their initial salvation. Jagged, gleaming, white-toothed mountains, sheer rock slopes and snub-nosed glaciers line its formidable coast. When Shackleton’s men landed at the eastern end of the island, it was their first landfall for 497 days. They had drifted for 9 months in their trapped ship Endurance, watched it crushed and swallowed by the Weddell sea-ice, then drifted north for another 5 ½ months before taking to their tiny flotilla of boats as the pack disintegrated. When they reached solid land on Elephant Island, they kissed the beach in relief. Short-lived, for their first landing site would be swept by waves at high tide. Frank Wild found them a marginally safer raised beach here at the rugged outcrop which still bears his name.
When Shackleton set off 6 days later in the James Caird, he knew no-one would find them on this forgotten island. Today we were thinking of the 22 men he left behind, who must try and survive through a second winter on the wave-lashed boulder beach before us. The last penguins were leaving, a few seals were caught, Shackleton had gone.... We spent an hour in our Zodiacs, staring at this sacred site, the lonely beach a monument to man’s determination to survive. They spent 137 days huddled under their flimsy boats, waiting for the Boss to return. And return he did. What a story.
