Antarctica: the beautiful south

the footsteps of Frank Wild, Shackleton's right hand man, Bathurst, Bella goes to Antarctica - a magical land of ancient icebergs and amazing wildlife

Every day is a newsletter published in the cool walls of the research vessel Akademik Ioffe caps. In the passages to the sea rough notes are adorned with sick bags tucked in the corners, but the first day of our trip to Antarctica is a quote from Steinbeck in place. "A journey is the same person," he said. "No two are alike ... We find after years of struggle that does not take a trip, a trip takes us. "

This trip is a stranger. All persons who met in Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of Argentina, has an agenda - needs, wants, something they hope the ice will be displayed. Most passengers have paid for the privilege of the rich: Tickets start at $ 10 300 and end somewhere in the upper atmosphere. There are many twitchers, hanging from their necks as symbols of fertility lenses electronics. There are a couple completionists wish list, hit the last of the seven continents. Some are box-complete set of penguins, and some are just looking for a place where the world can not reach them. A couple entered the travel agency is planning a trip to Africa and came out with an entry for the end of the world. The rest is right to be here -. Scientists hitch a ride, polar experts, and those in search of Frank Wild

A century ago, on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian flag was hoisted at the South Pole. Because he is a foreigner and because he did, its realization is not that the British brand, is the failure of Scott and Shackleton heroic Great Escape

When the ice of the Weddell Sea expedition boat crushed by Ernest Shackleton, the Endurance, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1916, his men took the lifeboats and rowing their way Elephant Island. It Shackleton left his second in command, Frank Wild, the main group, while he and five men appeared in the James Caird 800 miles to help in southern Georgia. They succeeded, Shackleton, Wild, and the rest, finally returned to Britain in rags, emaciated but alive and well

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affected territories, however, Shackleton lost his way. In the photographs of her face is young, but his eyes dark. Five years later contacted wild - while living and farming in South Africa - and asked if he would act as his deputy. The two seats to the next so it has almost become a single entity. "No need to write about it," Shackleton wrote in his book Wild

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. "This is my second self. I love you. This was a feat for me. "

The objectives of the expedition Quest have been resolved, but most of the original team was in any case. On January 5, 1922, just as they reached South Georgia, Shackleton died. With the blessing of his widow, Emily, was buried in the cemetery of the old church at Grytviken Norwegian whalers.

Silvestre returned to South Africa, where he died in 1939. Over the years, several attempts have been made to publish their memoirs or write your biography, but without success. Wild achievements were as remarkable as the boss was involved in five different polar expeditions and is one of only two people received the Polar Medal four times. But myths clouded his later life: he lost all his money, he was a drunk, a tramp, he was nothing without Shackleton. There was fighting for his memory, and after his death, his medals. His ashes were lost.

Something Wild seemed very resistant to the conclusion - until now. Aboard the ship are new biographer wild Angie Butler, six of the wild descendants who flew from Australia, Alexandra Shackleton, granddaughter, a general practitioner named Mike Wain Canterbury who bought Frank Wild Polar Medals auction and a small box classified as hand luggage timber containing the remains of wild ash own Frank. We are here to Shackleton back - from the Falklands to South Georgia, Elephant Island to the Antarctic Peninsula, with a ceremony to celebrate Grytviken wild final meeting with the boss. But in all other respects, our experience will be totally different from theirs.

The ship we are on the Akademik Ioffe, also has a history. Built and strengthened for ice in Finland to Russia in 1989 the specification was designed to "hydro-acoustic research" - Code of the Cold War to the mapping and audio surveillance and detection of submarines. As of other words, the Ioffe and its sister ship, the Vavilov, doing research that the government was using to spy. "Western governments had two ships listed as spy ships," said expedition leader Andrew Prossin ocean. "But then, all things Russian in the list."

The Ioffe - calm, stable and well-Soviet - is one of some 25 ships currently offer trips to Antarctica. Three years ago it was more like 35, but a recent ruling that all vessels using lighter polar oil with high content eliminated the largest cruise ships. The tourist season begins in Antarctica in early spring - late October - and ends in March from a peak of about 35,000 visitors in 2007, the peninsula now receives 25,000 per year. This figure alone explains almost everything about how the poles have changed over the century since the resistance was crushed. For the first explorers, Antarctica was as strange as the moon, is now a destination like other

So cast off. All our partnerships beyond the horizon recedes, and now we have nothing to do but to look at our strange new microclimate. The crew is Russian, the leaders of U.S. and Canadian shipments and passengers are global - British, Americans, New Zealanders, Japanese, Australians, French, Indian, Dutch, Swiss. Most passengers are at the age of retirement or.

cruise, it becomes clear, it is an acquired taste. Many have paid the average salary per year for a small cabin shared with strangers and a bathroom for four people. The money goes into the boat, the crew and officers of polar expeditions decades of exceptional experience. "Hello, hello!" the cry of "adventure concierge 'to the sound system to 7 hours a day, high-fiving us awake. Days at sea are a recognizable routine: breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a nutritious diet of lectures by experts on the subject

end of 18 days that have been fully informed about the great explorers, the breeding habits of the Cape Petrel and 47 names for the ice. In between, there is a possibility that they become dizzy or standing for hours to look like the rough seas and development such as albatrosses and petrels, without compensation of the compass on the stern.

Malvinas appear to the Hebrides, the vegetation is diagonal, the same proportion of sheep to people, the same ability to seduce or assault with the same vigor. The acting governor, Ric Nye, has been here for 18 months Shackleton and values ??above all for his thoughts on the relationship of the organization. It shows us that Shackleton used office while he was here, and his staff ("you want me to twizzle?"). Upstairs is the pool table in the browser to return once played with the names of all those that were written in chalk below.

never really understood the message

Shackleton here. While the governor's house in Port Stanley, while trying to arrange a boat to rescue the men left on Elephant Island, could not hide his frustration. "The street of the port is a mile long," he wrote in

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• . "It was a slaughterhouse at one end and the cemetery on the other. The main distraction is to walk from the slaughterhouse to the cemetery. For a change, you can walk in the cemetery at the slaughterhouse." His granddaughter, Alexandra has a more patriotic. A brutal figure, Patricia, very defined, very English, which corrects anyone who offers a less-than-Empire, the Falkland Islands.
The Wilds, however, are relaxed about their ancestors. The actions of the family of engravings by Frank Hurley, photographer of the expedition, was traded or exchanged between them (when a pack of cigarettes) and several of the original glass plate negative Hurley caught the sinking resistance broke out when they were children playing hide and seek in the laundry room.

"Scott and Shackleton have had their day," says Julie George, Wild-niece. "There is more emphasis on the forgotten, I'll be very interested to see what it was Antarctica kept pulling Frank -. What he called the little voices "'.''

South Georgia has six whaling station, Grytviken is the only one who can be consulted. The others, including Stromness, are out of bounds, in part because they are full of asbestos and in part because they were destroyed by trophy hunters and traders of scrap. More Grytviken few buildings still in use - the old church of Norway and the world of the post in the south - standing, surrounded by machines formerly used by whalers. Picturesque and the macabre, tanks and engines irrelevant skeletal overlooking the bay. Grytviken Shackleton was buried with honors by his peers and Norwegian whalers and now his right hand will be buried next to him. "Here's son, Frankie," said Julie baby, placing the coffin on the altar.

The congregation is: the Jungle, Alexandra Shackleton, Angie Butler, most of the passengers and crew Ioffe, a group of staff members of the British Antarctic Survey, and the total power of the two authorities South Georgia. Outside the church and on the way to the cemetery, the congregation ignore the elephants to sleep like speed bumps in the track. Ash wild are placed in a new tomb, in addition to Shackleton. During the time that the boss was here, there was a tradition that companies all ships "to arrive at Grytviken gives you a shot of whiskey, tradition extends today for the first time wild

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