South Shetlands – Elephant Island, ice bergs & Madder Cliff

One of the the things I really wanted to see on this trip was Elephant Island. As I mentioned in an earlier blog and as many of you already knew, this is where Shackleton left 22 men while he and 5 others went off to South Georgia to secure their rescue. I knew we wouldn’t be able to land, even in the Zodiacs, because the island is surrounded by outlying rocks and the sea here is rough. However, the plan was to get us to within 100 meters of the beach where these incredible men spent 4 months before they were eventually rescued. The beach is at Wild Point, named for Shackleton’s right-hand man, Frank Wild. He is credited with keeping the men’s spirits and sanity intact during the long wait.

Unfortunately, we hit very thick fog long before the approach which failed to lift in time for us to make a sortie. We were also behind schedule at this point because the fog had persisted through the previous night and the ship had to slow to 7 knots. Knowing a lot of the passengers would be disappointed the captain circumnavigated the island and when we got to the south side we managed to get a glimpse.

Elephant Island

There was nothing for it at this stage but to head into the Antarctic Sound and get our first sight of the Antarctic mainland. We headed off to Brown Bluff and marveled at the tabular ice bergs along the way.

Well, we didn’t get to land at Brown Bluff. When we got there the sea was full of brash ice and massive ice bergs. This captain was not going to be stuck in the ice like his colleague before Christmas on the Academik Shokalskiy. We moved on to Joinville Island and landed there at Madder Cliff. The mainland will have to wait a few more days. At least we are in the Antarctic Sound.

Madder Cliff is so called because of it’s red colour, derived from an algae.

Penguins not so clean here!

I didn’t bother landing here. On the other hand Margaret, never daunted, headed off with the rest of the kayakers. It’s been a while since I posted any photos of her canoeing so here’s a few taken by Patricia.