January 11, 2024 - Our first iceberg and welcome to Elephant Island

 


To be an official iceberg in Antarctica, it must be at least 15 meters. This was the size of a football field, so it definitely made the grade. It was also higher than most North American domed football fields.


In the afternoon of the 11th, we made it to Elephant Island. We ran outside for this pic but then returned to our room to get better suited for the weather.

This was more comfortable. From left to right, Mathew, Tate, Naan, Alycia, Victor, Kelly, Scott, Sheryl, Lori, John, Cheryl and John (our group has two Johns and two Kelleys so this may get confusing, we also have one Sheryl and one Cheryl but lucky for us the spelling is different).

Cheryl and John were not in our original group photo in Argentina, but they wound up being our next-door neighbours and new best friends.


John and Cheryl

So now it is time for the history lesson. Elephant Island is known in the history books as the spot where the crew of explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance survived 127 days after the ship sank south of the island.  Below is a timeline showing the events


The spot on Elephant Island where the crew stayed was named Point Wild after Shacketon's Second-in-Command, Frank Wild, who remained with the crew while Shackelton and 5 other crew members sailed a further 1,300 km in a lifeboat back to South Georgia to arrange a rescue party to come back. In the end, all the crew were rescued.

We spent the better part of half a day here and maybe an hour of that outside, which was more than enough for us.





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