Elephant Island

We are about 490 nautical miles southwest of the South Georgia Islands. We set sail yesterday afternoon from Elephant Island at the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula surrounded by whales. One of the marine biologist aboard described it as sailing through a whale soup. Southern right whales swam right up to the ship. The fin whales entertained us with their geyser like blows and the faithful humpbacks continued to show off their impressive flukes.

Yesterday morning (Thursday, February 23rd) started off with grey skies and small, spitting snow flurries with strong winds as we approached Cape Lookout on the eastern shore of Elephant Island.



We were hopeful that we would be able to attempt a landing. There is less than a two percent success rate at landing. It has been years since National Geographic had made a successful landing. We had an added incentive in that we have a young women traveling with us that is documenting the oldest living organisms on earth. In order to be included in her study, the creature has to be more than 2,000 years old. In the 1980's a moss bed on Elephant Island had been cored and aged at 5,500 years. The moss bed had not been observed since that first discovery. Her guess at the location was based on photographs taken at the time with a few unnamed peaks and glaciers in the background. As it turns out, the photograph was printed backwards so the landscape was reversed. For the rest of us and the crew, Elephant Island is special because this is where Ernest Shackleton with five men set sail for South Georgia.

We attempted to board the zodiacs several times before we were successful. We put ashore in a small cove protected from the weather by a low arête.



Elephant Island is the harshest place I have experienced. The wind is relentless. It is beautiful in its severity with glaciers appearing from the mists and grinding there way relentlessly to the sea.


The landing area was full of fur and elephant seals, a large colony of chinstrap penguins, and cape petrels. There were also a large number of nesting snowy sheathbills. We also encountered our first macaroni penguins.



We sailed from Cape Lookout to the northern point of the island to Point Wild, the site where Shackleton left his men. The point is named after Shackleton's number two. More on that in the next posting,

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Location:Scotia Sea