It is perhaps the incredible final chapter of one of the most astonishing survival stories in history.
Earlier this month, the remains of the legendary ship Endurance was finally located 107 years after it sank off the coast of Antarctica.
The ship, found 10,000 feet below the surface of the frigid Weddell Sea, had brought British explorer Ernest Schackleton and a crew of 28 men to the bottom of the world in 1914 in an attempt to become the first humans to cross the Antarctic continent.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Instead, the Endurance became trapped in freezing ocean ice that it could not be freed from, and after months of slowly crushing conditions, sank out of sight in November 1915.
At that point, a nearly unbelievable story of survival and eventual rescue began.
After floating on sea ice until April 1916 when the ice began to break up, Shackleton ordered his men into three lifeboats, where they eventually reached Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and a few of his crew set off in the largest of the boats towards South Georgia Island -- a 720-mile journey.
After rowing 16 days through storms and towering waves in their open boat, Shackleton and five sailors made it to their destination and came back to rescue the men who had been waiting for months on Elephant Island.
In the end, not one human soul was lost.
The hardships these men endured in perhaps the most inhospitable conditions on Earth are nearly beyond belief. Let’s just say none of the 69 sled dogs brought on the expedition came back – and leave it at that.
After years of searching based on the navigational notes of the Endurance’s navigator, Frank Worsely, the sunken ship was finally located only four miles from Worsely’s estimated position based mostly on the sun and stars used for ocean navigation in those days.
The latest expedition to search for the ship was called Endurance 22 and funded by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.
“We are overwhelmed by our good fortune in having located and captured images of Endurance,” said expedition leader Mensun Bound. “This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen.”
The Endurance lies in quiet, pristine waters governed under the International Treaty of Antarctica and can not be disturbed. No artifacts can be brought to the surface and it will now be considered a monument.
Even though Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton never reached his ultimate goal, he is revered by those who appreciate his bravery, his loyalty to his companions and his historic accomplishments.
During a previous expedition to Antarctica, he located the South Magnetic Pole and became the first person to summit Mount Erebus, the volcano-mountain of Antarctica.
Following up on this success, Shackleton departed England on the Endurance in 1914 – his third try to complete his trans-Antarctica mission.
Seven years later, Shackleton embarked on a fourth Antarctic expedition but suffered a heart attack enroute on Jan. 5, 1922 and died on his ship at age 47.
His body is buried on South Georgia Island – the place where the Endurance began its ill-fated final sail to Antarctica and where Shackleton returned to ultimately rescue his nearly-starved crew.
And now -- along with his doomed ship -- pass once more into legend.
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