![]() After the first day of the march the boats had been hauled the paltry distance of one mile. The ice was protruding and jagged and at no point was there a flat surface, and efforts by some of the men to forge a flat pathway in front of the boats, proved hopeless. The March began on October 30th and almost immediately problems arose. Despite the reservations of his crew Shackleton ordered a westward march, and two of the lifeboats, which were fitted on sledge runners, were filled with supplies, to be hauled across the ice by the men, in harness. Shackleton thoughts now turned to finding land, and getting his men off the ice as quickly as possible, but the nearest island was an estimated 300 miles away, and any effort to trek there seemed futile given the rough conditions on the ice. The ice floe was only between 3 ft and 10 ft (1-3m) thick and the depth of the Weddell beneath them was measured at 11,256 ft (3,430 m) – about two miles.* The Quest For Land Over the course of the next few days, the men salvaged what supplies and timbers they could from the floating wreckage and they camped on the ice floes. ![]() Supplies and the three lifeboats were taken from the ship, which was now breaking up quickly. On the 27th of October Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship, after all efforts to save her had failed. The drifting ship would remain precariously afloat, despite some serious squeezes from the ice floes, until October 24th, when its starboard side came into contact with a large floe, and its hull began to splinter. Late in July there were signs that the ice was starting to melt and on August 1st, the ice floes were breaking up around the ship, and the pressure of the floes was forcing huge slabs of ice underneath the keel of the Endurance, eventually causing it to list heavily on its port side. Plays were performed on the ship by the crew, singsongs and card playing were commonplace at night, while during the days the dogs were exercised, and football matches took place on the ice. The men passed the Antarctic Winter as best they could, and Shackleton made every effort to keep the 28 men occupied and entertained, to preserve morale. The men readied the ship for use as their Winter quarters and built dogloos on the ice for the canine element of the entourage. The optimism however had long since disappeared by February when it became obvious that they would not be released by the ice that year, and they had drifted far beyond Vahsel Bay. Despite this advice Shackleton departed South Georgia on December 5th 1914, for Antarctic shores, and as soon as two days later they were manoeuvring through pack ice. Shackleton was warned by the Norwegians that that seasons ice was particularly bad in the Weddel Sea, and it extended further north than they had ever seen. South Georgia was an uninhabited island, save for the few Norwegians that manned the whaling stations on its eastern flank. South Georgia was the Endurance expeditions last port of call before it headed for the Weddell Sea. Once rescued the seven men would realise that all their toil and hardships had been in vain, as the Endurance had never made landfall after becoming trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea. ![]() A blizzard had descended upon them and they disappeared. The expeditions photographer and chaplain, Arnold Spencer Smith succumbed to scurvy, returning from the Beardmore Glacier, in March 1916, and the Commander Aeneas Mackintosh and Victor Hayward perished after attempting to walk to Cape Evans across very unstable sea ice, on May 8th 1916. Three of the men had died before the re-equipped Aurora returned for the seven surviving members in January 1917. ![]() The shore party now had to re-equip itself and did so largely by foraging supplies from previous expeditions, mainly that of Scott’s Terra Nova campaign, and the success in completing their task is testament to their bravery and resolve, in the face of so many difficulties. The ice would hold the ship captive on a drifting course of over 1,600 mile before she managed to cut free, and headed to New Zealand to be repaired. The Aurora party would ultimately complete their mission and laid all the required supply depots, but the shore party were left stranded after the ship was ripped from its moorings and was unable to return, due to the drifting ice which carried it out to sea, with most of the shore parties food, fuel, clothing and equipment on board.
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