Posted on 02/10/2019 7:03:49 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
The team broke through thick pack ice on Sunday to reach the vessel's last known position in the Weddell Sea.
Robotic submersibles will now spend the next few days scouring the ocean floor for the maritime icon.
Shackleton and his crew had to abandon Endurance in 1915 when it was crushed by sea ice and sank in 3,000m of water.
Shackleton's skipper, Frank Worsely, was a very skilled navigator and used a sextant and chronometer to calculate the precise co-ordinates of the Endurance sinking - 68°39'30.0" South and 52°26'30.0" West.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Okay, I don’t know why, but that put “The Pirates of Penzance” into my mind...and not in a good way!
Do you know if the stranded crew ate penguins to survive?
The events of WWI cast a shadow over Shackleton’s feat.
They did! At first they could just walk into the midst of the penguin colony, take a couple by the flipper and walk them back to camp. But after a while, the penguins caught on and then they couldn't get near them. I thought that was so interesting!
I cried when the cook's cat had to be killed. The cook never forgave him for that.
Penguins were their main source of food and fuel once they ran out of the food that they called “ship stores”. They kept “sledging rations” that were supposed to be consumed on the trip across Antarctica. It is unbelievable the discipline these men had to not consume these as hungry as they were. They would hold back and reward themselves with a treat every once in a great while. Frank Hurley, the ship’s photographer, devised a stove that would use the blubber of the penguins to cook the meat of the birds. This stove was ingenious and it would actually fuel itself the way he designed it. They tried to use one match per day when they were floating on the ice flow camp and when they were stranded on Elephant Island for six months.
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