The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-24)

The Sunday Times April 24, 2022 17

The South

Georgia

archipelago

is home to fur

seals, pipits and

king penguins,

left; the region

has been

significantly

affected by

climate change,

right

JAMIE LAFFERTY; MICHAEL BAYNES; LAUREN BATH; DANITA DELIMONT/ALAMY

TO

UTH

RGIA

south because there was too much ice

that year,” said Perrin, back on the Greg

Mortimer. “He ignored good local advice

and that doesn’t deserve any admiration.

That was a bad call. And yet, when the

shit did hit the fan, he had skill as a leader,

someone who could make things happen,

keep people going and maintain the will

to live. That’s the stuff.”

Or, as Shackleton’s former shipmate

George Marston wrote in an obituary

in 1922: “Here, perhaps, we have the

secret of his success as a leader — that

power, given to so few, of making the

effort seem worthwhile.”

In the middle of our time in South

Georgia we made a pilgrimage, one made

by thousands of Antarctic tourists in an

ordinary year, but by far fewer in the

pandemic-blighted 2021-22 season.

From the moment we stepped ashore

at Maiviken it felt like we were in the

company of ghosts, just as it did for all

three miles of the hike to Grytviken,

Shackleton’s final resting place.

Before we could even see the decaying

whaling station, we heard the mournful

bell of the old whalers’ church being rung

by fellow passengers who had been

unwilling or unable to join the trek and

sailed ahead.

We continued into the settlement and

were met by a chilling fog, the wreckage

of the Petrel whaleship barely visible from

a distance, the rusting remnants of its

awful trade all around us. “In the bay

dead whales floated, on the shore their

carcasses rotted, and the beach was thick

with their bleaching bones,” wrote

Marston of this place. “We breathed the

smell of whale day and night and fed on

whale meat in company with the dogs.”

Eventually we arrived at the cemetery.

To the side, a young fur seal pup dozed on

the grave of Johanes Rodsten, who died

here on July 29, 1912. Shackleton lay at the

back, facing south, his grave made in the

style of everyone else’s, only grander,

more difficult to ignore.

Aurora staff poured a whisky for all the

passengers in attendance. A passage of

poetry was read, a toast raised to the

Boss. It felt significant, but I was instead

struck by the inscription on the front of

Shackleton’s monolithic headstone. After

a life of such high adventure, just one

incontestable word was etched into the

granite below his name: Explorer.

Jamie Lafferty was a guest of Aurora

Expeditions, which offers a 19-day

South Georgia and Antarctic Odyssey

voyage aboard the Greg Mortimer from

£14,525pp, based on two people sharing a

state cabin (auroraexpeditions.co.uk).

Price includes return flights between

Santiago, Chile, and the embarkation

point of Stanley in the Falkland Islands;

all meals, snacks and some drinks; shore

excursions, Zodiac cruises and on-board

lectures. Fly to Santiago with British

Airways from £845 (ba.com)

standing in British society, made it

possible to distribute the story throughout

the English-speaking world. And he wasn’t

a man short of ego.”

Shackleton died in South Georgia’s

Grytviken Harbour, aboard his final ship,

the Quest, on January 5, 1922. The

centenary was set to be marked in 2022

by Antarctic expedition cruises.

Serendipitously, on March 5, exactly 100

years after Shackleton was

lowered into the frozen

ground at Grytviken,

Endurance was found

at the bottom of the

Weddell Sea by the

Endurance22 team,

led by the polar

geographer Dr John

Shears. After gathering

their extraordinary

footage of the old ship, the

team came to South Georgia to

visit Shackleton’s grave and give him the

good news.

We arrived a couple of weeks later

and had the island to ourselves, but the

downside of travelling in the austral

autumn was that increasingly violent

weather systems were closing in. Perrin

and captain Oleg Klaptenko were in

constant contact, debating which landings

would be best so passengers would get the

most from this singular archipelago.

Things were at their most perfect when

we reached the eastern part of the island.

We spent the morning cruising on Zodiacs

as brilliant sunshine illuminated Cooper

Bay, spotting four species of penguin, two

baleful leopard seals and yet more pipits.

With nerves and memory cards still

jangling, the afternoon had us at Gold

Harbour, home to tens of thousands of

king penguins and a fantastically flatulent

pile of moulting elephant seals.

Passengers became genuinely lost

for words, shrugging and smiling at

the overwhelming nature of their

experience. A hanging glacier at the end

of the beach made for a photogenic, if

poignant, backdrop. “It’s really shrunk

since I last saw it,” said the assistant

expedition leader Dan Stavert, ruefully.

“It’s only been three years and the

difference is incredible.”

What would the great icemen of the

heroic age of Antarctic exploration

make of the demise of their frozen world,

one wonders.

It’s not always easy to remain earnestly

objective when talking about Ernest. Few

people mention his dreadful decision-

making before disaster struck all those

years ago, nor his philandering, nor his

extensive cocaine use in the form of

Forced March tablets (“Allays hunger and

prolongs the power of endurance”). Like

most people familiar with Antarctica,

Perrin feels conflicted when discussing

the man they called the Boss.

“He didn’t listen to the whalers on

South Georgia who told him not to go

There are plenty of seal-spotting

opportunities, top; Shackleton

and Endurance, below

Maiviken

Grytviken

Gold

Harbour

Cooper Bay

Cape

Rosa

King Haakon

Bay

SOUTH

GEORGIA

ATL ANTIC

OCEAN

20 miles

Falkland

Islands

Just one word

was etched into

the granite

below his name

— explorer