Lifelong quest Wreck found by ‘Indiana Jones of the Deep’

When the camera, sunk 10,000 feet below the surface of the Weddell Sea, zoomed in on the letters that spelt “Endurance” on the wreck, there was “a huge ‘ta-dah’ moment”, says marine archaeologist Mensum Bound (above right).

The 69-yearold who led the mission confessed the enormity of the achievement, the peak of a stellar career over more than 40 years that has earned him the nickname “the Indiana Jones of the Deep”, has yet to sink in.

“Shackleton has been a lifelong thing for me,” he explains. Mr Bound grew up in the nearby Falkland Islands, where the polar explorer’s “greatest escape of all time” – in leading his crew of 27 men to safety after the loss of their ship – made him the enduring local hero.

The obstacles Mr Bound and his team have overcome in searching for one of history’s most elusive wrecks would have defeated lesser mortals. There is the Weddell’s notoriously thick sea-ice, the Antarctic blizzards and minus 18C temperatures, not to mention the daunting two mile depth at which the ship most likely lay.

When he was eventually persuaded to give it a go in 2019, Bound’s first attempt to find Endurance had to be abandoned. “What made the difference this time was the technology,” he said. “It has changed hugely since I started doing this sort of work as a 27-year-old [first off the coast of Turkey, then the south of France, followed by the Mary Rose in England]. Even in the past three years it has developed so much.”

This time they had state-of-the art remoteoperated submersibles. “We were the first to use them and it meant we could go in on anything that looked unusual,” Mr Bound says.

The longed-for sign that Endurance had finally been found again came when sonic waves sent back signals indicating “an amorphous blob”.

Bound says: “We knew it must be Endurance because it is the only wreck that’s down there.”

But it was only when they switched to cameras that the find “sent shivers up my spine”, he adds.

“You can see a porthole that is Shackleton’s cabin. At that moment, you really do feel the breath of the great man upon the back of your neck.

“You can even see the paintwork. It is in such a good state that I felt, in that moment, that we could almost raise her and sail off,” he adds.