The crew of the Shackleton Epic arrived on the beach at Peggotty Bluff, South Georgia island this morning after an 800 nautical mile voyage on a small wooden life raft in an exact copy of a 1914 journey complete with reindeer hair clothing, and a diet of bullion flavored lard, nougat and caster oil. And that was the easy part.
Shackleton Epic is a recreation of Ernest Shackleton's rescue mission where his ship was crushed by pack ice in the Southern Ocean, so he had to rescue his men by taking the tiny support ship 800 nautical miles from Elephant Island to South Georgia, where they got out and walked to the opposite coast.
Leg one of the journey (the boat trip) was described by one of the 6 crewmen,
veteran adventurer Ed Wardle, who has climbed Everest twice, as “the hardest thing I have ever done." Conditions below deck were so cramped that when they slept, their bodies became so entangled it was "like the last 10 seconds of a 1 hour game of twister” according to crewman Barry Gray. Some of the men used wooden barrels as pillows, and the reindeer hair from the clothes went "everywhere." And then there was the cold...
Now they are out of the frying pan and into the fire, the second leg of the voyage is a climb across South Georgia's mountainous, crevassed interior to reach the whaling station at Stromness.
The leader of the expedition, Tim Jervis accepted the offer of Alexandra Shackleton, Ernest's granddaughter, to attemp the journey because he wanted a challenge in life. And with the hard part of the journey about to start, that's exactly what he's walking into.
The leader of the expedition, Tim Jervis accepted the offer of Alexandra Shackleton, Ernest's granddaughter, to attemp the journey because he wanted a challenge in life. And with the hard part of the journey about to start, that's exactly what he's walking into.
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