On My most recent expedition to Antarctica and South Georgia, I was accompanied by my wife, Kirsty, and our 20-year-old twins, Katharine and Cormac, aboard the Akademik Ioffe of One Ocean Expeditions.
The above photo, taken by Kirsty, shows me at Point Wild on Elephant Island, the very place where 22 members of Sir Earnest Shackleton’s 1911 to 1914 Endurance Expedition survived for four long winter months under two upturned lifeboats.
Behind me is the bust is of Chilean Captain Luis Alberto Prado, commander of the tiny steam tug, the Yelcho, which navigated through treacherous seas to rescue Shackleton’s stranded crew after Shackleton and five other members of his expedition had sailed 600 perilous miles from Elephant Island to a whaling station on South Georgia. The expedition and subsequent rescue missions failed to lose a single man, a miraculous achievement in the history of Antarctic voyages and exploration.
I was finally able to land at Point Wild after eleven attempts to visit the historical shore over a span of 20 years.