The photo posted here is a classic and very dramatic photography taken by Frank Hurley during the Endurance expedition. Its a photo of the ship named "Endurance" trapped within the sea ice and currently we have a very similar situation with the two ships we are waiting for here who are currently within the same area of frozen Weddell sea. For those who don't know the story of this expedition is possibly one of the greatest survival stories of all time:
Endurance was Shackleton's third polar expedition which came in the wake of the tragic death of Robert Falcon Scott who died in his efforts to be the first person to reach the South Pole. Unfortunately Scott didn't only lose his life but also the race to the pole. With England having lost a hero and both poles to the Norwegians, Shackleton was determined to claim the final prize and be the first to cross the Antarctic by foot. Therfore only a week after the first world war had began, Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven seamen and scientists set sail on the Endurance disappearing of the map for nearly two years. The Endurance - a 300 ton wooden barquentine. She was 144 feet long, built of planks of oak and Norwegian fir. Equipped with both sail and coal-fired steam engine she was, it seemed, ideally equipped to withstand the ice. Her original name was Polaris which Shackleton renamed Endurance after his family motto: Fortitudine Vincimus - "by endurance we conquer". Surrounding the continent of Antarctica is a band of frozen sea called pack ice. For Shackleton and the men of the Endurance the pack ice of the Weddell Sea was worse than anyone had previously encounted. The Endurance began following leads (breaks in the ice) to navigate through, on route to its intended landfall (not far from where I am currently stationed). Just one day's sail from the Antarctic continent within eighty-five miles of the coast the ship Endurance was trapped and frozen fast for ten months. The Endurance was slowly crushed by ice pressure, forcing the men to abandon ship and setup camp on the ice. The men camped on drifting ice floes for five months. Then finally open water appeared. They launched their three lifeboats the men set off through stormy seas until taking refuge on a rocky, uninhabited outcropping called Elephant Island. Shackleton knew that his already weak men would never survive on this desolate spot and therefore decided to attempt the impossible and try to cross the sea on an incredible seventeen-day, 800-mile journey, in freezing hurricane conditions, to the nearest civilization - South Georgia Island. Amazingly the James Caird lifeboat miraculously landed on the island, having achieved what is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history. Once on land, Shackleton and two of his men still had to trek across the mountains of South Georgia, before finally reaching the island's remote whaling stations where they organized a rescue team, and returned to save all of the men left behind on Elephant Island. Not one man lost his life on the Endurance expedition and in Endurance Shaclketon really did conquer!