Saturday 22nd November

Overnight we left the whales and clear skies behind us and around 4am we
arrived at Elephant Island. I woke just in time to look out the
porthole to see Cape Wilde a few hundred meters away, before a thick
dense fog shrouded the whole island from us. As we had breakfast it
was becoming obvious that the landing we all so desperately wanted may
not happen, such is the way things go on trips like this.

Monica confirmed as much when she announced we would first have a zodiac
cruise to take us as close as possible to the beach. 12 of us in a
zodiac set off, with the new novelty of broken brash ice to get through
first. As we got as close as we were going to get , we could all see
the large breaking swell that was preventing us from landing safely, and
only for the quick thinking of our driver a rouge wave that came up
behind us could have given us all an unexpected ice bath.

Back on board and there’s no hiding the disappointment most us are
feeling at not being able to set foot on the island. There’s a slim
chance for later in the day, but it would have meant so much to all of
us to see the tiny beach that all Shackleton’s men survived on for four
months while awaiting his return and their rescue.

Instead we cruise around the island as close as the captain can safely
get us. Once again we are all surprised by the scale and size of
something we all had our own impressions of. I had though the island to
be little more than a rock, similar to our own Skelligs, but it is far
bigger than any of us imagined. There are huge peaks, sheer cliffs and
massive glaciers but only a handful of safe landing spots.

Misjudging scale, size, distance and time is a common thing on board it
seems. Most of us are struggling to know what day it is, we only have a
rough idea what time it is by knowing which meal is next or we’ve just
had. Everyone seems to have underestimated the amount of time we’d
spend on the open seas, but all of these are only byproducts of this
fantastic trip and don’t concern us much.

Over breakfast someone mentions the plummeting share price of banks at
home. Normally this may spark off a recession related conversation,
taking in house prices etc.. on this ship though no one gives it a
second thought, for fear of making a link back to the real world.
Instead the conversation continues with various scenarios for landing on
the beach, what gear to bring etc. So I’m thinking if we don’t know all
the doom and gloom news, does it actually affect us ?

We’re hoping for some kind of weather related miracle to get us ashore..
but it doesn’t come. Instead we get a second trip in the zodiacs to get
up close to the Island at Point Lookout. The seas are rough and there’s
a long wait on the gangway to try and board the boats. They are rising
and dropping six feet from the steps which makes climbing aboard
hazardous and generally undignified. Up to now I’ve had no problems
with getting on or off, but at the last minute I’m distracted by someone
on board, take my eye off the step and instead start looking at the
boat… .big mistake. With one swell, I’m knee deep in freezing water ,
the one time I don’t have my boots on. So some hardship at last.. a
bit more like Tom Crean and the boys.. being warm and dry under layers
of gortex and polartec fleeces was getting a little boring.

With freezing feet, I do my best to pretend I’m enjoying the rough ride
our driver thinks we all want for some reason. We navigate through
flooding channels and around reefs to see our first Chinstrap penguin
colony, perched on a ridiculously treacherous cliff with no protect from
the elements. Everyone is looking at the smallest peace of shingle or
sand and thinking we could have easily landed there.. but it’s not to
be. Even with our high powered flexible zodiacs launched from only a
hundred yards away, we couldn’t penetrate Elephant Island’s breaking
surf.. and this was a calm day. Hats off once more to the crew of The
Endurance for somehow landing here in the full fury of the Southern
Ocean’s winter.