After leaving Coronation Island in the South Orkneys, we headed northwest towards Elephant Island. Icebergs became more numerous and much, much larger. We passed many big tabular bergs, some 150 feet tall and more than a mile long on a side. These had come from the Weddell Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea.
Elephant Island is where 22 of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s men were stranded upon reaching the island after escaping their shipwreck in the Weddell Sea. As I mentioned on the South Georgia entry, Shackleton left the men on the island at Point Wild while he and other crew members left to get help at South Georgia in their little lifeboat, the James Caird. Point Wild is nothing more than a tiny spit of land (bottom center, in photo below) between the main island and a smaller, triangular-shaped island, barely big enough for their overturned lifeboats which they used as shelter.
Elephant Island almost always presents a difficult landing, and this time was no exception. Our way was blocked by an abundance of last winter’s sea ice as well as heavy surf. so we didn’t attempt a landing, instead maneuvering our ship to less than a mile from Point Wild
On my first expedition here, some 21 years ago, we were able to make a rare landing on the rocky spit. A small colony of chinstraps greeted us, most of them nesting on the very spot the Endurance crew spent the winter. Nearby, a small monument stood to commemorate the Chilean captain whose ship Shackleton used to finally rescue the stranded crew.
Today, we only looked, humbled by what the Endurance crew had to endure. Then we sailed south.