Shackleton's Boat JourneyFrank A. Worsley was the captain of the H.M.S. Endurance, the ship used by the legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in his 1914-16 expedition to the Antarctic. On its way to the Antarctic continent the Endurance became trapped and then crushed by ice, and the ship's party of twenty-eight drifted on an ice floe for five months. Finally reaching an uninhabited island, Shackleton, Worsley, and four others sailed eight hundred miles in a small boat to the island of South Georgia, an astounding feat of navigation and courage. All hands survived this ill-fated expedition; as Worsley writes, "By self-sacrifice and throwing his own life into the balance, [Shackleton] saved every one of his men . . . although at times it had looked unlikely that one could be saved." "This remarkable book . . . shows [Shackleton] both luckless and lucky, and supremely cool and courageous throughout. Worsley writes without heroics . . . but makes us feel to the marrow the conditions that the party endured before all hands were rescued."--The New Yorker "Worsley's account of that journey is a breath-taking story of courage, skill and determination under the most appalling conditions."--Sir Edmund Hillary |
Contents
Members of the Expedition | 9 |
PART I | 33 |
Entering the pack ice of the Weddell | 65 |
A great castellated berg that menaced the ship | 71 |
Return of the sun after the long winter darkness | 79 |
Young emperor penguin chicks | 147 |
The James Caird being slid into the water | 152 |
Hut in which members of the expedition lived | 158 |
South Georgia Island | 172 |
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Common terms and phrases
ahead albatross Antarctic astern baling beach blew blubber boat journey bows Burberry camp canvas Cape Demidov Cape Horn cave Clarence Island clear cliffs clouds coast cold cooked cooker crawling Crean crevasses crossing danger dark deck Docker drifted east Elephant Island Endurance feet fell felt floe Fortuna Bay four Frank Wild frostbitten glacier Greenstreet hands hauled heavy sea hoosh inches James Caird King Haakon Sound land looked lumps Macarty Macklin mast miles misty navigation night noon northwest oars Ocean pack ice party peak Polar Research Institute Possession Bay Primus pulled reefed rock rocky rope round sail Scott Polar Research sea anchor seal Shackleton ship Sir Ernest sledging sleeping bags slope soon Sorlee South Georgia southeast steered Stromness Bay swell tent took turned tussock Vincent watch weather Weddell Sea westerly whaling station Wild wind wind'ard Worsley