Seesea Travel Blog

Travel Location: Oceania

I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,

The best and the last!

The remarkable journey required the 3 explorers to trek for 36 hours, fighting blizzard conditions across numerous glaciers and mountains. And all after crossing 800 miles of the Southern Atlantic Ocean (from Elephant Island, just north of Antarctica) in a 22.5 foot-long open whaleboat known as the James Caird.

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute’s at end,

And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,

Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain.

–From Prospice (Ernest Shackleton’s favorite poem) by Robert Browning

Our final landing on this most perfect of days was on the shores of Fortuna Bay, where certain (i.e. the “fitter”) members of the expedition were to endeavor to complete the final segment of the legendary “walk” of Sir Ernest Shackleton, along with Tom Crean and Frank Worsely, up and over the glaciated backbone of South Georgia. The remarkable journey required the 3 explorers to trek for 36 hours, fighting blizzard conditions across numerous glaciers and mountains. And all after crossing 800 miles of the Southern Atlantic Ocean (from Elephant Island, just north of Antarctica) in a 22.5 foot-long open whaleboat known as the James Caird.

I’ve already written in more detail about the historical significance and context of this walk in a blog post titled “The Grave of Shackleton”, so I won’t repeat it other than to post a refresher link to the previous entry here: http://realtravel.com/antarctic_region-journals-j6622989.html

Upon arriving at Fortuna Bay 26 hours into their walk, suffering frostbite, hunger, dehydration and sheer exhaustion, Shackleton, Crean and Worsely had reached the limits of endurance. Stopping for a brief respite from the blizzard conditions, Crean and Worsely fell asleep. In Shackleton’s words:

“Within a minute my two companions were fast asleep. I realized that it would be disastrous if we all slumbered together, for sleep under such conditions merges into death. After five minutes, I shook them into consciousness again, told them that they had slept for half an hour, and gave the word for a fresh start.”

Summoning strength from depths only reached by men at the edge of death, they set out from Fortuna Bay to walk up past (what would later come to be known as) “Crean Lake” (see photos), through a mountain pass and down to the whaling station at Stromness. This final leg took the 3 exhausted explorers over 10 hours.

In contrast, our team walked the same final leg in only 3 hours on a gorgeous, clear blue-sky, sunshiny day that South Georgia so rarely gets (or so they tell us, all of days so far have been just this amazing).

The exaggeration of the landscapes in size and scale dwarfs the imagination and makes me feel very insignificant. Crean Lake is pristine and clear, an undisturbed oasis set among a rather desolate, rocky panorama of craggy peaks and glaciers. And the view from the mountain pass of the surrounding snow-cascaded ranges, glacial lakes and Stromness in the distance is a vision from dreams.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/timothyshoup/sets/72157603994842610/

Videos (3 more clips of my favorite Fur Seals): http://www.youtube.com/user/timothyshoup

I finished up the day playing with my beloved friends, the curious, cuddly and super-aggressive Fur Seals (if I had a dollar for every time some little under 5-pounder gave me a bluff charge, well…). Jamie Watts, our marine biologist, has described Fur Seals as “a cross between a Jack Russell and a Grizzly Bear, amped up on caffeine and methamphetamines”. And he couldn’t be more right-on-the-money with that description.

I absolutely love the Fur Seals, and I could sit and play with them for hours on end (which I did…as I’m sure the near 10 million photos I took of them attests to), watching them chaotically scamper about and listening to their constant “ooof, ooof, ooof” (see the videos, they’re hysterical!).

It was the best day ever…