Day 7) Elephant Island

Saturday 29th February 2020

I woke up at 6:30 feeling finally ok, after 4 days of being sea sick, rushing up on the deck. I got overwhelmed by the view of the glaciers of the Elephant Island in the morning light. I got to real ecstasy of happiness, sharing it really with everybody I met. Magic moment. Many of us succeeded to have a full breakfast with sunny side up egg. Getting ready for a ride in zodiacs. Unfortunately, due to high tide the landing is out of question, but the zodiac ride is equally great. There is a colony of chinstrap penguins, fur seals, in water we meet also a leopard seal. We land at the north part of the island at the point where Shackleton crew has spent 4 months (April to August 1915 with Endurance) and where he was saved by the Chillean general Luis Pardo, who has a bust now in the middle of the penguin colony. While the crew is doing rides for everybody, we all enjoy sunny time on the board, watching the magnificent view of glaciers (with spectacular shows of ice falling into water) and wildlife. At 2PM we leave for another 150 nautical miles to Danger Islands.

After the legendary Endurance was swallowed by the Weddel sea, 28 men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of Ernest Shackleton found the land ... this very same point of the inhospitable Elephant Island. In order to save his men, Shackleton with 5 another men made one of the biggest navigations of the history.... 1600 km from the Elephant island to South Georgia islands, on a small 7 m long boat. They managed to reached it in about 2 weeks, in which they could make just 5 sextant measurements! Exhausted, Shackleton and 2 most fit men crossed 90 km by foot to reach the whaler base, where they wanted to ask for help. Shackleton did not sleep at all, letting other 2 men to sleep just for 5 min at time, telling them they slept for half an hour, to keep their moral higher. At the end they managed to reach the whalers' base and with help of the Chilean boat Yelcho with the captain Luis Pardo (it is his bust that Chile brought to Elephant island), Shackleton has saved all 28 men.

Thinking about this story, all we did seemed to be a simple game.