A TRAVEL ACROSS THE ICE. The Shakleton expedition to Antarctica.Part One

" All day we had been using the ship like a battering ram. We admire our tough ship, wich looks like take pleasure in figh against our common enemy, smashing the ice floe with a great style. When it make impact it stop, it tremble from the rudder to the keel, and then, almost immediately, astern the ice start to break and we, like a wedge, force the crack little by little till we can pass through."

Few days before the First World War outbreak, the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty seven men, departured towards the South Atlantic in search of an objedtive never reached before: The first trip on foot over The Antartic. After five months of voyage, they reached the frozen Weddell sea, where their ship got trapped by the ice, and the crew abandoned. their awful experience remained twenty months, in wich they made two attempt almost fatal for escape, before the final rescue.

When Shackleton started his Imperial Transatlantic Expedition, he was already a national hero, main character in two polars expeditions. The first one, he made it in charge of captain Robert Falcon Scott, on board of The Discovery heading for McMurdo strait, at The Antartic. The real objective of this expedition was reach the South Pole, where nobody had arrived yet.Scott, Shackleton and the doctor Edward Wilson, departured on November the second 1901, with five sleighs and nineteen dogs. They confronted an exceptional challenge, more than two thousand and five hundred kilometers of hard trip,always by sleighs, overcompletly unknown places. that doesn't exist on maps. They scarved and suffer from scurvy. The dogs maked ill and falled over. Scott and his two colleagues reached 82º 17´south, almost one thousand and two hundred kilometers to the pole. At that time Shackleton spat out blood.Three months later they came back to their ship. The last stage of this horrible long walk was a race against death.

On October nineteen 1908 Shackleton departured again from his cape Royds base, to his second trip to the south. Three companion and four horses traveled together with him. Once again sarted dragging by hand. The horses slipped on and falled over time and again. Finally they had to killed and ate it. In the begining of December, Shackleton and his three colleague- Frank Wild, Dc.Eric Marshall and lieutenant Jameson Adams- had arrived to the tongue of a tremendous glacier, unknonw until then. Shackleton called it : The Glacier of Beardmore. It was a terrible and dazzling step. Fighting against the snow blinding whiteness, the expedition moved forward beyond the Beardmore, until the 88º 23´south. one hundrid and sixty kilometers to the pole. Sackleton had to take a sad decision, came back while there was chances to survive.They walked thirty six hours whitout almost have a rest, to find out the base deserted. Afterwards they were found out by a group who came back to look for their corpses.

On 8th August 1914, The Endurance departured from England. Sailed toward the south, going through Madeira, Montevideo and Buenos Aires, where they were loading up supply during two weeks, and where James Francis Hurley, australian photographer joined them, some days before Shackletom himself did it at Mar del Plata.

On 26th october , The Endurance, painted black, loaded with fresh supply and with sixty nine canadian sleigh dogs, set course for the south atlantic. The strong rains at Buenos Aires made think that the Weddell sea ice hadn't rough yet.

The Endurance arrived to San Pedro on 5th November . The small population of Norwegian whaling wellcomed in a warmly way to the expedition,wich was impressed about the level of comfort they had got in that remote island. All of the houses had elctric light and hot water. At Fridthjof Jacobsen´s house, the Grytviken´s administrator, there was central heating. The whalers supplied them with coal and clothes, as well as valuable information. Nobody knew that waters like them. They also confirmed the prediction about the ice plates streched toward the north that year.The norwegian advised Shakleton to wait until the austral summer, so the expedition stayed there for a month.

On 5th December 1914, The Endeurance leaved The Cumberland Bay of Grytviken, with fresh supplies, including two pigs alive, and a rested crew. The next day they went to a large group of icebergs, and on December seventh they arrived to the edge of an ice plage. The ship opened a cautious way toward the south, avoiding and surrounding plages and ice floes. Finnally they had to enter the heart of the plage. The last day of 1914, The Endurance cross the Antaratic Circle. On 10th January they could sight the coast of Coats, they started to go over its 30 meters high barrier.On 15th January the ship passed next to a cosiderable quantity of seals, who moved swimming away from the barrier toward an ice plage far from the coast. All of the expeditionaries went to the bannister and shouted at them while contemplated how the seals played like dolphins. The ice plage was growing as the expedition went closer the south. In several ocasions the ship stayed caught in the middle of a huge white dessert. The crew use to play football, waiting for a better weather.On 22th February, The Endurance that carried on floating toward the southeast touched the parallel 77, the most southern point where the Imperial Transatlantic Expedition was to reach. During six weeks and more than one thousand and six hundred kilometres they had arrived at one day sailing to the place where they wanted to disembark. The winter had caught them.

The Shackleton´s worry was to set up winter barracks to everybody. March's temperatures was from eleven until thrity five degrees bellow zero. The cabins that were at the coldest places, were moved and Dogs were put up in kennels made with ice blocks. "Dogygloos".

On 1st May the sun disappeared and it wasn´t seen during four months. They resorted to all kinds of entertainments: exercise with the dogs, Chess, Draghts, Cards,Reading and disussions about books.At the end of May men succumbed to the winter madness. they shaved their heads and layed down to the Hurleys' pictures.

In the bright nights pure darkness, the stars gleamed with an unimaginable strength, while a fleeting dawn tinged the horizon. Finnally after the endless polar winter, the night of 14th October the ice plage in wich the ship was caught opened, the ice splintered under the keel and the ship floated on clear waters for the firs time in nine months. Pushed by the wind avanced up to a hundred meters over the narrow waterway. But the ice surronded it again. On 24th October after dinner an awful crash shook the ship like an earthquake.The ice foe to port broke and huge pieces of ice flied out from the port bilge. The ship listed thirty degrees to port. The crew tried during tree days the water didn't get into the engine-room. On 26th October, a penguins flock, went closer the ship, looked intensely at them for a while, and then raised the head and emitted a gosthly cry of pain.

On 27th October, dawn broke bright spell, but cold, 22º bellow zero.The ice was thundering all the night, but men were too weary to payed attention about it. At five o'clock in the afternoon everything was over, Shackleton gave order of leave the ship. " Is difficult to write what I feel.- noted down Sackleton on his diary- For a sailor his ship is more than a floating home.(...) Now, creaking and shuddering its wood , it break, its wounds open, and is leaving slowly its life in the begining of its career."

He was the last one to leave the ship, raised the blue flag, and men hoisted three hurray as goodbye.