Spirit of Shackleton

The cruise ship Explorer that sunk in Antarctic waters has gotten a lot of attention. Those aboard were on a trip in the "Spirit of Shackleton." They were

probably thinking of his 1914 Endurance expedition, not the trip with

Scott in 1901 when he was sent home with scurvy. During the Endurance

expedition--the Antarctic adventure with more amazing plot twists than

any before or since--the ship was crushed in the ice. So these tourists

got a real taste of Shackleton's adventure! But it took a lot longer

for Shackleton's crew to be saved--21 waited on Elephant Island for four

and a half months, through an Antarctic winter, while Shackleton set out

over 800 miles of open water to South Georgia Island  where he found

help at a whaling outpost, Stromness Station. The photo here is either of Shackleton's men waving goodbye or welcoming the ship in. The photo is taken by Frank Hurley--if you don't know his photos, go find them. All of Shackleton's men

survived--by keeping busy and singing songs. I wonder if the survivors

of the Explorer sang as they waited to be picked up?

There are a lot of amazing things about this story of the Explorer, and one that has not been explained in any article I've read is how an iceberg can pierce the hull of a ship without the captain being aware of the location of such an iceberg. Icebergs are big. Technology that tells a ship what is where underwater is very sophisticated. If anyone sees information on this--let me know!

The other  amazing  detail is that  help was so close at hand. Several other cruise ships were close enough to quickly pluck everyone from the icy waters. One of those ships was a National Geographic cruise ship. Jon Bowermaster, who contributed a thrilling essay about flying onto the ice to Antarctica: Life on the Ice, was on that ship as a tour guide. He was also using the trip south to drop off supplies for his upcoming Antarctic kayaking expedition. Be sure to look at his posts and the audio descriptions of his trip. Because he was close at hand, Jon has been interviewed by the New York Times, ABC news, and NPR. The article in my local paper from Kingston, NY, the Daily Freeman, celebrates Jon, as he's a local boy:

Quoted from the Freeman:

"Stone Ridge resident and adventure writer Jon Bowermaster was aboard

the National Geographic Endeavor, one of two ships that first responded

to assist the sinking cruise vessel Explorer after it struck ice Friday

morning off the coast of Antarctica, The New York Times reported.

"There was a long line of black rubber Zodiac boats and a handful of

orange lifeboats strung out, and it was very surreal because it was a

very beautiful morning with the sun glistening off the relatively calm

sea," the Times quoted Bowermaster as saying in its Saturday edition.

"And all you could think about was how relieved these people must have

been when they saw these two big ships coming."

According to

Associated Press reports, aside from some mild cases of hypothermia,

there were no injuries among the 154 passengers of the MS Explorer, a

Canadian cruise ship that was retracing the Antarctic route of early

20th century explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Bowermaster, 53, was

touring the Antarctic peninsula aboard the Endeavor as a lecturer,

according to the itinerary on his Web site, and he was scheduled to

return on Friday, Nov. 30.

Bowermaster frequently lectures

locally about his travels. He most recently spoke at Oblong Books in

Rhinebeck on Oct. 27, when he read from his book, "Antarctica: Life on

the Ice" with coauthor Susan Fox Rogers."

I love that they have us co-authoring this collection! Actually is is 20-authored, with one proud editor...

Antarctic Sun!

Read all about it! Peter Rejcek has written a lovely piece about Antarctica: Life on the Ice for the Antarctic Sun. Thank you, Peter.

Burning calories AND keeping warm

From Karen Joyce--thanks Karen!

Who are these people? That's a great split off to the right!

Thanksgiving on Ice

Happy Thanksgiving! For those of you sitting warm inside, watching football and smelling the turkey roasting I want you to send a warm thought to our friends on the ice who are not eating turkey. To give a glimpse of what Thanksgiving can be like on the ice, I'm offering up the first few paragraphs of Traci  McNamara's richly detailed essay from Antarctica: Life on the Ice. The woman in blue with the marvelous warm smile is Traci. Enjoy!

                We Ate No Turkey: A Holiday on Ice

Traci J. Macnamara

    Instead of spending Thanksgiving Day as I usually did in Colorado Springs—watching the Macy’s parade on TV in my pajamas--I was shivering in my work clothes on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, learning how to make a storm-worthy shelter by cutting dense snow into blocks with a paper-thin saw.  Snowcraft, as our mountain-savvy instructor called it, was only one portion of McMurdo Station, Antarctica’s two-day survival skills course optimistically called Happy Camper School. 

The course, required of all workers and scientists at McMurdo, started

on a Thursday morning in the Field Safety Training Program conference

room, where our instructor Brian led twelve first-timers to Antarctica

through the lecture portion of the course.  Novices, we were.  But it

was Brian’s job to get us into Extreme Cold Combat Shape in less than

forty-eight hours, and by the end of our tenure on the ice shelf, we

would be firing up stoves and lashing down mountain tents, all—of

course—with great rapidity in order to outsmart the gale-force winds

and popsicle-death scenarios he concocted in order to keep us moving

quickly.  When he wasn’t in Antarctica, Brian—tight-bodied and exuding

a spirit of adventure--worked as a guide in Alaska, but at McMurdo, he

was a member of the highly respected Field Safety Training Program team

(F-STOP for short), a group of sexy men and women who spent their lives

in rugged environments and then migrated south for the austral summer

to teach McMurdo’s scientists and support staff how to survive them.

After Brian introduced us to our Happy Camper objectives, he briefed us

on cold-weather health hazards, their symptoms, and their remedies.

Before lunch, I felt confident knowing the basics of hypothermia and

its telltale signs—the fumbles, mumbles, and grumbles.

“Talk to your partners to determine their LOC,” Brian said while

pointing to a white board scribbled with notes about how cold weather

affects a person’s level of consciousness, “and help them out before

they get into that irreversible phase.  If you notice that anything’s

off, start with some food and water and get them moving around.”

Besides those suggestions, Brian offered a few other ideas about how to

prevent and treat hypothermia while he gestured with his hands and we

watched, motionless and mostly bored, from our chairs.   

Of hypothermia’s remedies, one above the others captured my

imagination. F-STOP Brian told us that it is possible to warm up a

hypothermic body by stripping it naked and putting it in close

proximity to another naked body. “In extreme cases,” he clarified, “you

can use direct body heat to re-warm a hypothermic individual.”

Ideally, the second naked body would be warm, and these two naked

bodies together would be skin-to-skin within a sleeping bag so that an

ailing individual could reap the thermodynamic benefits.  A few giggles

followed and a few glanced around the room.

To read the rest of the essay you have to buy the book! www.susanfoxrogers.com