The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Endurance and adventure in Antarctica
The discovery of Ernest Shackleton’s ship highlights the allure of this ice-bound continent for modern-day explorers, says Sarah Marshall
Abranch of fossilised coral crunches beneath my snow boot. Proof that the land I’m standing on once belonged to the supercontinent Gondwana, the tropical relic has survived several million years and multiple climates to tumble down the hillside of an icy island, offshore from the Antarctic Peninsula.
Snow melt has delivered a cascade of ancient ammonites, petrified sea urchins and mussels perfectly mummified in stone, many likely never seen by human eyes.
I’m on Snow Hill Island, a harsh, inhospitable land mass at a latitude of 64°28’S on the peninsula’s eastern side. Rarely reached without an icebreaker, it’s a temporary home for 8,000 emperor penguins that come to breed each year. Washed by the Weddell Sea, a notoriously treacherous, ice-clogged body of water, this section of the seventh continent is one of the wildest, most uncharted and most scientifically fascinating places on our planet.
Disintegrating ice shelves and evershifting floes have thwarted countless polar expeditions and led great explorers to near-death. But a rare window of clement weather has permitted my expedition ship, Aurora Expeditions’ custom-made Greg Mortimer, to travel further south than most passenger ships are able to go.
Last weekend, the same favourable conditions allowed scientists to make one of the biggest discoveries in polar history. In 1915, the Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton’s threemasted wooden barquentine, Endurance, was trapped in the Weddell’s ice, eventually sinking without trace. More than 100 years later, an expedition team has uncovered the vessel in remarkably good condition, at a depth of 10,000ft.
A rescue voyage was planned to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the hero’s death, but no matter how much budget, expertise and preparation was made, weather would always be the deciding factor. The Weddell Sea is usually impassable until late in the season – and even then, a combination of wind and ice can block paths. But during the past month, the Antarctic sea ice has been at its lowest extent recorded since the 1970s, allowing both scientists and intrepid tourists to venture this far. Although bucket-list sites such as Port Lockroy and the Lemaire Channel lie on the western side of the peninsula, trips into the Weddell promise adventure but make no guarantees.
Despite two days of 20ft swells, the Greg Mortimer’s inverted bow (a design innovation known as X-BOW®) meant my crossing of the Drake Passage was nothing like the hazardous journey on board Endurance. From my balcony window, I comfortably rode the contours of an ever-changing seascape; waves formed peaks as jagged as a mountain range, flattening into wideopen steppes.
Our expedition leader, Florence Kuyper, had warned us it would be impossible to make plans. Despite this, there is a sense that trips to the Weddell raise excitement among even seasoned members of staff, reviving that same desire to explore felt by Shackleton all those years before. “Our ship is shinier, the food is better, but the ice is the same,” comments one guide.
Oddly, there are attractions for tourists on Snow Hill if they can make it. A hut belonging to a Swedish team led by Otto Nordenskjöld, which was forced to overwinter here between 1901 and 1903, has recently been restored. While our group of 48 (less than half the ship’s 126-passenger capacity) disperses to search for fossils and hopeful sightings of emperor penguins, most of which most likely departed in December, I climb to the top of a dusty hill softened by permafrost. Almost alone, listening to the trickle of meltwater, I relish a rare moment of isolation rapidly disappearing from our hectic lives.
It’s a similar story on the Naze peninsula of James Ross Island, where dinosaur fossils have been found. Gulls cling to the crags of a steep-rising mountain, velvet-skinned Weddell seals roll in rubble, and fossils crack open under almost every footstep to reveal their treasures like a Fabergé egg.
They call Antarctica the world’s largest desert. In this frigid, beautifully barren landscape, I can understand why.
Aside from three stragglers doing their best to avoid swooping, predatory skuas, the Adélie penguins that colonise this coastline have bred, moulted and headed back to sea. In their place, an army of belligerent fur seals has shifted into the area from sub-Antarctic regions as the climate changes and temperatures rise.
It’s unusual to have an Antarctic voyage where wildlife isn’t the focus. Instead, icescapes, geology, history and – above all – adventure steal the limelight.
Australian guide Daniel Stavert tells me that kayaking, which is available as an add-on to most voyages, has grown in popularity over the past few years. In Duse Bay, a sculpture park of abstract bergs and frosted towers, we glide through glassy, coruscating waters reflecting a perfectly blue sky. I scoop up trophies of thousand-year-old crystalline ice, so old there is not a single air bubble, and I watch – respectfully – as a leopard seal defends its frozen throne from less powerful pinnipeds. Largely, the joy is about touching, feeling and navigating the landscape in a different way.
As the seventh continent becomes more accessible, the bar has been raised for offering new and thrilling activities. Ice climbing, overnight camping and submarine excursions are now all possible. At the forefront of marine-based adventure tourism in Antarctica, Aurora Expeditions was the first company to sell scuba diving.
Unable to complete the required 30 drysuit dives ahead of my voyage, I opt for snorkelling. Snowflakes fall from a bruised and swollen sky when I set off for a chilling dip in the shallow waters of the forebodingly named Devil Island. Three layers of clothing and a drysuit do little to ease my anxiety, but aside from the stinging sensation of pins pricking my face, the salty water – which freezes only at -1.6C – is surprisingly bearable. For 20 minutes, I swim with a somersaulting fur seal and float above the enormous foot of an iceberg, weaving between its knobbly toes.
The experience is special, but dive guide Peter Szyszka admits most people sign up for bragging rights. Few people have snorkelled in Antarctica, even fewer this far south. Knowing we are the only ship in the Weddell Sea adds to the spirit of adventure.
It has been a difficult two years for the polar cruise industry. Early in the pandemic, ships were paralysed by outbreaks of Covid, and ghost vessels were left floating out at sea. Despite the implementation of strict new protocols, the 2021-22 season has been extremely challenging due largely to ever-changing Argentine regulations, with many companies cancelling departures and some even filing for bankruptcy.
By switching operations to Chile, Aurora Expeditions is one of the fortunate few operators that has managed to sail through the past few months with minimal interruption. Of course, the experience in Antarctica is very different: masks are always worn (even onshore); dining tables are strictly assigned; and the bridge is off limits. During an 11-day voyage, I took five rapid antigen tests. Had any been positive, I would have been consigned to my cabin for the remainder of the trip.
An air of anxiety is unavoidable. Yet people are still willing to take the risk. Scenic, which sells voyages on an ultra-luxurious 228-guest yacht, says its 2022-23 season is already virtually sold old, pushing it to release new dates ahead of schedule to satisfy demand. News of the Endurance discovery will no doubt cause interest to surge even more.
Tour operator Discover the World and expedition cruise specialist Polar Latitudes say footage of the historic ship has already resulted in an increase in enquiries for voyages to the Weddell Sea and South Georgia, where Shackleton is buried. It demonstrates an appetite for exploration that is still as strong as it was more than a century ago – even though those exposed wooden vessels are poles apart from the luxury leviathans cutting through fierce waves today.
Enjoyment may have superseded endurance, but Antarctica continues to feed our human desire to go a little further, look around a corner and venture where few people have been before.