March 7, 2025

Before I leave the blog on the Antarctic I want to share one story with you.

Throughout all the beautiful scenery that we saw sailing through the Antarctic there was one strange sighting. On the tip of one of the coves we sailed by was what looked like a bust of a male figure. I was so curious that I had to find out what it was, and I was able to support my findings through the many photos I took.

An Irish explorer Earnest Shackleton and his crew made landfall after their ship, Endurance, sank beneath the Weddell Sea. It was their first dry footfall in 500 days. They had camped on ice after Endurance sank and then made off in their lifeboats to find suitable shelter. It took six days before they landed at Cape Valentine. Shackleton wrote of his men “They were laughing uproariously, picking up stones and letting handfuls of pebbles trickle through their fingers like misers gloating over hoarded gold”.

Cape Valentine, however, was not a suitable place for a camp, so the lifeboats coasted almost another 7 miles to Point Wild, ultimately named for Shackleton’s first mate, Frank Wild. It was adjacent to the Furness Glacier, so had a supply of fresh water, and was on a penguin rookery, which meant that it had a supply of fresh meat.

Shackleton left Wild in charge while he and 4 others made off in one of the lifeboats in what became one of the most storied tales of navigation, to South Georgia, 800 miles to the Northeast. It took 17 days in tumultuous seas. They landed on the wrong side of the island and had to hike for 36 hours across the mountains and glaciers to the Norwegian whaling station at Storminess.

From there Shackleton returned to South America to mount a rescue effort. He made 4 attempts to get through the ice to rescue his men. A hundred and twenty-eight days after Shakleton left Point Wild he made it back, led by a Chilean naval sea pilot Louis Pardo. (It is Pardo’s bust that now stands on the point.) Approaching Shackleton called out to ask if all were alive. Wild called back “We are all well, sir.”

Shakleton’s leadership and management style and skills have been studied for over 100 years. He started by taking care in picking his team. He not only wanted expertise in sailing, science and survival, but he wanted musicians who would bring their instruments, a chef who could prepare tasty meals, and he brought sports equipment for exercise. Shakleton led from the front.

Antarctic Explorer Raymond Priestly wrote: “When disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for a Shackleton.”

On the sail out to the North, heading to the Falkland Islands, we sailed past a huge table iceberg. I was reminded of some of the trials that Earnest Shackleton must have faced. That iceberg was at least four times the size of the Holland America Volendam that we are sailing on!

Thanks for traveling with us.