The place: The Bridge Hotel. At the north end of the High level Bridge
The date: 19 February 2019
The time: 7 pm – 9 pm or later
All are welcome for the usual geochat and fellowship.
The event name continues the maritime theme and is also apposite in view of current interest around Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated ship, Endurance. The ship was designed and built in Norway in 1912 for use in Arctic conditions for hunting and tourist trips but the backers pulled out and Shackleton was able to pick it up at a knock-down price. Endurance was perhaps the strongest wooden ship ever built and was intended for ice-breaking.
This was the ship used in Shackleton’s "Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition" which departed in 1914. Unfortunately, on 19 January 1915, the Endurance became frozen fast in an ice floe in the Weddell Sea and drifted with the ice, remaining trapped, through the winter. As the thaw began the pressure became too great and the ship began to break up, finally sinking in November 1915. The story of the subsequent rescue and journey via a small boat and on foot over mountainous terrain in South Georgia is one of the great survival epics and fits well with the name of their stricken boat.
What gives the Endurance current relevance is that Antarctic explorers are currently breaking their way through 75 miles of sea ice in an effort to reach the final resting place of the ship The spot where it went down is known with some precision, thanks to the coordinates recorded by Frank Worsley, Shackleton’s skipper and master navigator. Should the explorers make it to the last known location of the Endurance, they will send autonomous robotic submarines into the water to scan the seafloor for the sunken ship.