Chasing Shackleton

by Tim Jarvis

  Finally we are only minutes from departing, after four years of effort to reach this point.

  Courtesy of Skye Whelan

  We left the beach by Zodiac to join the Alexandra Shackleton 200 meters offshore and then returned with her to the shallows to push off from there. This avoided the risk of damaging the boat or getting our crew needlessly wet. It was a balancing act. She was a strong vessel—probably stronger that the Caird—but not that strong.

  We slipped the lines from Australis and rowed slowly toward Point Wild, Baz on the bow oar and me at the stern. With rocks visible in the icy water only a meter or so beneath the surface, we approached with caution. Now we were a mere minute or so away from starting our journey and the atmosphere was electric, a charged combination of awareness at the potential danger we were putting the boat and ourselves in and the knowledge that we would soon be under way. We rose and fell with each wave, all peering downward on the lookout for rocks, while occasionally looking over our shoulders to ensure no threatening wave crept up on us from behind. Gingerly we moved stern first into the narrow channel that the Caird had exited through more than ninety-seven years before, hissing surf all around and water cascading off the rocks. Trying to back paddle, I snagged my oar on the seabed. Quickly heaving it out of its rowlock, I used it as a punt pole, balancing the end of the blade precariously on a large, smooth boulder just meters from the beach. “That’ll do it,” I shouted as the hull grazed unseen objects beneath. With that, I braced myself, hoped I had good purchase, and pushed as hard as I could to send us seaward. “Row!” I yelled to Baz as he leaned into his work, and the Alexandra Shackleton slowly responded to our combined efforts. As the depth began to increase I jumped into the cockpit to face astern, my back out to sea, to begin a series of small strokes to start pulling the boat away from danger. The oar flexed wildly as I did so, putting Nick’s repairs to the test. Slowly she steadied and made progress as Baz and I pulled hard, the clunk of small pieces of brash ice against our hull indicating we were moving out of the surf and into the sea. We had begun the penultimate chapter of the journey of our lives with the vast Southern Ocean and the mountains of South Georgia between us and destiny.

  Shackleton’s camp at Point Wild, looking back at Elephant Island. A thin spit of land exposed to the sea on both sides, it was a better home than the pack ice but only just.

  Courtesy of Tim Jarvis

  There were, of course, other major differences between our starting point for the expedition and Shackleton’s. He had endured an unbelievably harsh and dangerous crossing from the pack ice just to reach Elephant Island, whereas we had been in relative comfort right up to our arrival. Worsley wrote of their circumstances several days into their bid to reach Elephant Island: “So far this boat escape had been a Rake’s progress. We had rowed. We had sailed. Shackleton and I had taken turns at towing the smallest boat. We had been hindered by pack ice, head winds, currents and heavy swells. We had hauled up on the ice and escaped again. Now after 3 days of toil and exposure, without sleep, we were forty miles farther from Elephant Island. . . . The men like true British seamen ceased complaining and said grin and bear it. Growl and Go.”

  Nevertheless, we faced some disadvantages Shackleton did not. Most significantly, we had gone from a position of safety and predictability, where we were largely able to control our circumstances, to one filled with danger and unpredictability. In some respects Shackleton had at least arrived at a place of relative safety that may have given him a psychological advantage over us. Worsley summed it up when he wrote about the prospect of moving from the pack ice that had held them captive for so long: “In spite of our troubles and losing sleep the whole party was in good spirits, for at last we had exchanged inaction for action. We had been waiting and drifting at the mercy of the pack ice. There had been nothing that we could do to escape. Now there were more dangers and hardships, but we were working and struggling to save ourselves. We were full of hope and optimism.”

  But now, regardless of our different reasons for trying to reach South Georgia, we were on parallel journeys almost a hundred years apart. It had been four years of effort to get here and a waiting game at Arctowski to secure conditions that would be right for a landing on Elephant Island. Now we were trying to get away as quickly as possible, both to escape the surf and to ensure that we didn’t drift back toward the rocky coastline in whatever eddies and currents there might be.

  The heavy oars moved reluctantly through the water, the weight of the Alexandra Shackleton from a standing start providing great resistance. The 300-meter-wide band of heavy brash ice around Point Wild—like a band of space debris orbiting a planet—didn’t help, and the Alexandra Shackleton had to cleave a passage through it. The oar splints—cut from the hollow bumper bar with an angle grinder and bashed into position by Seb in Puerto Williams, then finessed by Nick in the Arctowski workshop—seemed to be holding out well. It was exhausting work but I knew we couldn’t stop until we were a safe distance from the rocks and beyond the ice. “Shall we sail, lads?” Nick asked, just as beads of sweat started to form uncomfortably beneath my woolen layers. Baz and I gratefully stowed the oars, hoping we wouldn’t need them again until the final approach into South Georgia.

  The three sails were hoisted amid great anticipation; twenty minutes later, the boat had barely moved, our mood sagging along with the sails. It was unsurprising given we were in the wind shadow of a vast island, but it was disappointing just the same. Only the slow receding of the rocks at the end of Point Wild indicated any forward momentum. This was a far cry from Shackleton’s departure, where they left at nearly three knots, having enough boat speed to be “shipping sea” or taking on water from the waves they crashed through. For us, by now beyond the breaking surf, there were no waves, just a gentle swell.

  Hours after our departure, we could still see the dark cliffs to the left of Point Wild and the tall rock outcrop at the end of the spit. In the late evening light it looked like the silhouette of a church with a steeple. Although Shackleton makes no mention of it, the sight of it would have seemed to him a good portent. The fact they set off on their quest for salvation on Easter Monday might also have appealed to his sense of the auspicious. The way Worsley wrote about Cornwallis and Clarence islands gives an indication of the positive mood on the James Caird: “To the east Cornwallis and Clarence Island were revealed—two beautiful, serene and stately virgins with soft mauve wreaths and veils of misty clouds around their brows and shoulders.” Unfortunately both would remain consigned to the imagination as the Southern Ocean had made Elephant Island the only practical choice of landfall.

  Despite our slow pace, we set a bearing directly to the north, knowing we would be pushed to the east by the strong easterly currents that sweep around the Horn from the Pacific and out into the South Atlantic. We anticipated these would send us east at half a knot an hour—an incredible pace when one considered the top speed we’d managed from the Alexandra Shackleton was around only five knots at best and that at the moment we were perhaps doing one.

  Heading north was part of our predetermined plan to get to the correct latitude for South Georgia and then turn in toward it on that line of latitude. It was a slightly less challenging way of navigating traditionally than trying to go straight toward South Georgia in a diagonal line. The other motivation for wanting to head due north was the fact we knew that massed pack ice lay to the immediate east of Elephant Island, perhaps as little as twenty kilometers away. It was the same motivation that governed Shackleton’s decision to bear north at the beginning of his voyage. From our low vantage point on the Alexandra Shackleton we would be in among it virtually before we saw it, and that was somewhere we simply couldn’t afford to be. Being stuck or damaged in the pack would have been disastrous.

  Our northerly bearing was at the moment purely hypothetical anyway, as we weren’t moving fast enough to do anything other than crab our way as much east as north for the first five or six hours. In the meantime,
our next problem was slowly presenting itself—a spectacular tabular iceberg that had appeared on the horizon due north of us and right in our proposed line of travel. Perhaps four kilometers wide, it sat like a second horizon above the dark of the sea, brilliant white reflecting the dying rays of the sun.

  Nick opted to head northwest slightly upwind of the iceberg. He knew that in the light southwesterly winds, sailing downwind of it might have been a bit faster for now but would potentially leave us in its wind shadow by dark. An iceberg the size of a small city, with towering 150-meter cliffs, it could render us powerless in its lee at night. If not grounded, the iceberg would continue to be moved by the wind and currents and literally run us over. Nick had demonstrated already the importance of having top-notch sailing expertise on board, as only he or Larso would have known to make such a call.

  Now we just had to milk whatever forward momentum we could out of the Alexandra Shackleton in a bid to avoid the iceberg’s westernmost tip. With darkness coming on fast, it was a slow-motion battle and one I could tell Nick and Larso were taking extremely seriously.

  The iceberg was close by, its sheer imposing walls of turquoise and white ice now in shadow while its shimmering surface, smooth as a billiard table, was bathed in ethereal moonlight. We remained upwind of it but were so close now that we could hear the waves breaking against its sides. It was a beautiful yet unnerving experience as the Alexandra Shackleton tried to claw her way past its northern tip.

  The journey from Elephant Island, save for the presence of this iceberg, had started well, with both our landing at and departure from Point Wild accomplished safely. Navigation was made easy by taking a back bearing to the rocky church and steeple silhouette of Shackleton’s camp. Due to our slow progress, had there been any men left behind at Point Wild we would have been able to see their fires on the beach, as we were still less than ten kilometers offshore after more than six hours of travel. Despite the lack of speed, we were moving smoothly and steadily and felt relieved to be on our way. We’d had a celebratory tot of the Mackinlay’s whisky and all was well with the world—for now at least.

  As if to wish us well, a pod of whales, likely humpbacks or rights, reassuringly blew all around us, reminding us that this ocean, while feared by man, was simply home to these leviathans who lived beneath its surface. The mood was one of quiet contemplation, each of us amazed to be in the situation in which we now found ourselves—a position of real privilege to be experiencing that which Shackleton had all those years before, tinged with concern about what lay ahead.

  Baz cooking on the Primus; England expects that every man will do his duty.

  Courtesy of Paul Larsen

  We decided it was time to try to eat something, as we had neglected to do so in the excitement of our departure. A massive orange flame emerging from the cockpit signaled that Baz had got the Primus stove going, its glow making those of us on deck—Nick, Ed, and me—feel warmer than the -5˚C (23°F) should have allowed us to. Despite the cold, we were too excited to go below and remained on watch to ensure we passed the iceberg without misadventure.

  The positive feelings normally associated with food receded faster than Elephant Island as a gloved hand from below passed up a mug of congealed slop. Glistening with globules of fat, it was a dense, dark broth that wobbled to its own cadence as the boat gently rocked beneath it. It was “hoosh”—the staple of all heroic-era sledging journeys. I hadn’t eaten this since I’d prepared my own for the Mawson trip in 2006, and it had taken since then to erase the memory of it. Frankly, the heroic era could have been so called based solely on the men’s ability to eat this stuff, regardless of any other feats of physical or mental endurance. I brought the mug up to my mouth with trepidation, the first contact confirming the worst. Slimy, lukewarm lard with a pungent aroma overwhelmed the senses, the oil of the pemmican coating my lips with a slippery gloss that licking served only to spread until they were thickly coated like zealously overapplied lip balm. Swallowing it was even worse, as it slid down the throat far too easily, leaving an aftertaste that discouraged further consumption. My grimace spoke volumes but Larso needed further clarification on what I’d just experienced. “How is it on a scale of one to ten—dog shit ten, nice steak one?” “About 7.3.” I laughed nervously. But I wasn’t joking.

  Suddenly we realized that seasickness, until now unfelt, was not far away. I managed to down half the contents of my mug before consigning the rest to the deep and cleansing my throat with a cup of hot, sugary milk. Nick’s log perhaps sums it up best: “Hoosh was terrible. Boss not happy. Pan very tough to clean. . . .”

  In the meantime, Nick outlined his plan for taking watches. Larso would lead one watch and Nick the other, with three hours on, three off, a slight variation on Shackleton and Worsley’s strategy of two three-man teams on alternating four-hourly watches. The rest of crew were to be divided into two teams: Seb and Baz in one, me and Ed in the other. Each team would spend half their three-hour watch with Nick, and half with Larso, giving some continuity on deck. Ed and Seb were intentionally not paired up because if Seb needed to fix something, Ed would likely want to film it. I agreed too that keeping Baz and me, the two biggest crew members, on different watches was good both for space down below as well as occasions when physical grunt might be needed on deck.

  Initially we tried two people in the cockpit and the remaining man below deck, on standby next to the hatch. There seemed no point in three people getting cold up above, plus there was no space for three anyway, unless the third man perched precariously on the deck itself—not a good idea given how slippery its surface was, now made even more treacherous by an unfortunate spillage of greasy hoosh. The constant likelihood of being soaked by waves, snow, and sleet or, worse still by far, the terrifying and very real prospect of falling overboard and the ruthless reality of survival time in the water, made being on deck a dicey undertaking in all but the calmest of conditions.

  One by one, the cold forced all below save Larso, who remained at the helm, keeping one eye on the sail, the other on the iceberg. Life below deck was immediately confronting, the five of us expected to live, eat, sleep, and answer the call of nature in an area the size of a queen-sized bed. The acute discomfort of our quarters would have been all too familiar to Shackleton, who described in South how “there was no comfort in the boat. The bags and cases seemed to be alive in their unfailing knack of presenting their most uncomfortable angles to our rest-seeking bodies. A man might imagine for a moment that he had found a position of ease, but always discovered quickly that some unyielding point was impinging on muscle or bone.”

  During the night I awoke, cold and initially disoriented, to a pain in my right hip. Needing to move immediately to relieve the cold and discomfort, I realized I couldn’t. In the half-light afforded by our two small skylights I could make out three bodies spooning as one across the width of the boat, their booted feet all resting on me, who, at six-foot-five (195 centimeters), lay along the length of the boat. Wriggling free like a rugby player after a tackle, I shuffled onto my back. This relieved the hip pain but then I felt the weight of the legs move immediately to my stomach, thighs, and chest. The stench of my reindeer-skin blanket over my face, the discomfort of having my arms pinned by my side by my crewmates’ legs, and the misery of having my neck propped up awkwardly against a water barrel served as brutal reminders of where I was. I desperately needed to urinate but I could neither see the bottle nor move to look for it and so tried to put it out of my mind. Before I had time to think further about things, Larso told me it was my turn on watch, which, frankly, was welcome. My movement was met with muttering from Nick, Baz, and Ed, followed by writhing and repositioning. As I sat up I knocked my head hard on a cross spar and felt Seb’s boots in my face. It was a miserable living space but at least we were dry. For now.

  The blue-gray of dawn revealed we had passed the giant iceberg that had stood in our way and, although others were visible, none were in our direct path. Nick an
d I were on the early morning watch. He stood against the back of the cockpit, gloved hands gripping the wet ropes, elbows braced against the corners. I stood forward of him, the two of us pressed uncomfortably close together like a rider and pillion passenger on a tiny moped. In addition to its awkward intimacy, Nick couldn’t actually see past me, he being the shortest and I the tallest member of the crew. But it was better than him standing in front of me, which gave him no leverage and prevented him from seeing the pennant over our left shoulders that told us wind direction. When Nick’s arms eventually tired he tried sitting on the plank suspended midway up the back of the cockpit, pushing his knees into the back of mine, folding them and forcing me to sit in his lap in a position that felt even more compromising than the cozy standing configuration we’d adopted previously—something of an achievement. In addition to this indignity, Nick lost circulation in his feet, which may have been a precursor of what was to come for him. More fine-tuning of our helming positions would be required.

  For now, at least, Nick and Larso were taking it in turns to steer the Alexandra Shackleton with a second man joining them in the cockpit, the steadily strengthening wind still coming awkwardly behind us, making the boat want to jibe continually. The easy sailing conditions we had enjoyed for the first day and a half had gone, along with the icebergs, brash ice, and whales that had accompanied our first full day at sea. The seas were now building and at a rate faster than we could acclimatize to. Seasickness began to grip us all, with Larso and Ed choosing to vomit raucously over the side as the rest of us battled our rising nausea. The waves continued to grow in height and thickness, great, gray-green wedges of ocean pushed up by the wind. A debate briefly ensued as to how to measure them. It seemed a moot point: all I knew was from trough to crest they were approaching the height of our mast, which, at 4.9 meters, meant they were high enough.