Cape Valentine and Point Wild, Elephant Island We came out of the shelter of the Weddell Sea last night and felt the power of the Southern Ocean immediately: a mighty heave with a little kick at the end of each roll reminding us that here, winds and weather rule all. Luckily we have moderate seas with a steady wind from the northwest, but we have been chased by a series of lows that tell us the year is turning, and the Antarctic winter is not too far off. By breakfast, we could see land: the legendary Elephant Island, an unforgettable part of the Shackleton story. The sun came out at Point Valentine, a jagged spur of rocks at the east end of the island where the crew of the Endurance finally landed on April 24, 1916. For them it was a deliverance, and though frostbitten and exhausted, they fell from their tiny boats and kissed the beach: it was the first solid ground they had stood on for 497 days. Once trapped in the sea-ice in the Weddell Sea in January 1915, they had drifted 1000 miles north in their ice prison, Endurance frozen into the pack ice. Their first winter became increasingly hopeless as the icy vice closed on their ship until it was crushed and sunk in November of 1915. They then drifted north a further 600 miles in "Ocean Camp," their canvas tents set out on the sea-ice, as the southern summer caused boats, rowing for 6 days to reach Elephant Island, which at the time must have seemed like the Promised Land. We stared at their landing point, a wilderness of sheer, black cliffs and unstable glaciers, pounded by a heaving ocean.
After the euphoria of solid land under their feet, they soon realised that their landfall would be a deathtrap in the biggest storms, and rowed a further 8 miles along the north coast to reach a precarious rock spit with a raised boulder beach which offered the only sanctuary. From here, Shackleton, his skipper Frank Worsley and 4 handpicked men set sail for one of the most incredible stories of survival at sea: 700 miles across the Southern Ocean in a 22' long wooden sailboat, 6 desperate men with 2 tons of Elephant Island rocks as ballast to stop them rolling over in the giant waves. Today the great rollers still break over Point Wild, named in honour of Frank Wild, Shackleton's second-in-command, who kept the 22 remaining men alive under their upturned boats while they waited for rescue. Every day he cheered and chivvied them as they waited for "The Boss" to return. For 4 months they held out, chewing on seal carcasses, penguin steaks, seaweed and limpets, through a second Antarctic winter of snow, ice and gales, until the tireless Shackleton returned to rescue them all. Incredible. As we turned away from the island, a stray sunbeam lit up both the land they sought and the ice which had destroyed their expedition, reminding us that their ordeal had indeed been between "a rock and a hard place."
After the euphoria of solid land under their feet, they soon realised that their landfall would be a deathtrap in the biggest storms, and rowed a further 8 miles along the north coast to reach a precarious rock spit with a raised boulder beach which offered the only sanctuary. From here, Shackleton, his skipper Frank Worsley and 4 handpicked men set sail for one of the most incredible stories of survival at sea: 700 miles across the Southern Ocean in a 22' long wooden sailboat, 6 desperate men with 2 tons of Elephant Island rocks as ballast to stop them rolling over in the giant waves. Today the great rollers still break over Point Wild, named in honour of Frank Wild, Shackleton's second-in-command, who kept the 22 remaining men alive under their upturned boats while they waited for rescue. Every day he cheered and chivvied them as they waited for "The Boss" to return. For 4 months they held out, chewing on seal carcasses, penguin steaks, seaweed and limpets, through a second Antarctic winter of snow, ice and gales, until the tireless Shackleton returned to rescue them all. Incredible. As we turned away from the island, a stray sunbeam lit up both the land they sought and the ice which had destroyed their expedition, reminding us that their ordeal had indeed been between "a rock and a hard place."
