Elephant Island

What a nuts place this was – Point Wild on Elephant Island. Here it was that 28 men from the Endurance Expedition landed, and 22 stayed for 4 months while Shackleton et al went off by boat to South Georgia for rescue.

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The passengers didn’t get to land unfortunately, above you can see a few of the expedition staff on land, at Point Wild. It doesn’t look like much, and it really isn’t. A very small inhospitable spit of land. The Endurance crew (Wild?! and a couple of others) had rowed 7km along shore to find this spot, it was the best they could do, and it was here that they made camp. What a brutal place to be for 4 months.

There’s a monument to the Chilean captain (Luis Pardo Villalón) who was the captain who rescued them off the Island.

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It’s funny, we had the calmest seas getting there, and even then we were unable to land (ice on the landing and a bit of a swell). Most trips they can’t even see remotely as much as we did, let alone have the opportunity to do a zodiac cruise around the place.

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And then there was this guy, a sleeping juvenile humpback whale. Every 6 mins or so it would come to the surface, have a breath, and sink back down again.

Sleeping Humpback

Then in the afternoon we went exploring around more of Elephant Island.

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The whale above might be a Southern Right, I’m not quite sure, maybe a sei whale. Definitely a whale anyway ;)

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One comment on “Elephant Island

  1. Amazing photos! Keep ’em coming!

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