Whiskey Cache

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

[Nimrod Expedition Whiskey; re-creation]

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Christmas Day Forecast, 1914

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

Heavy floes held the ship up from midnight til 6am on Dec 25, Christmas day. Then they opened a little and we made progress till 11:30am, when the leads closed again. …The ice held us up till the evening, and then we were able to follow some leads for a couple of hours before the tightly packed floes and the increasing wind compelled a stop.

— Ernest Shackleton

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Xmas Letter [Not Sent]

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

“Had my usual evening walk & smoke, as I am better of the piles but I have been thinking of my loved ones all day I hope there is nothing wrong & that You will enjoy Yourselves tomorrow X Mass.”

— McNeish’s Christmas note, 1914 [from his journal; not sent]

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A Tale of the Sea

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

A Tale of the Sea

I slept and dreamt of the ocean:
Of tarry sailors joys:
Of the tales which they loved to fashion
Of days when they were boys:
And I laughed aloud in my sleep:
“In those days they said they were men:
Is there one who has a record
Of worth: for a poets pen?”

Then I saw a great long line
Of ghostly ships come from the North;
Come churning the seas to foam
Splashing their bows with froth.
Dipping now into the hollows:
Now on the top they rise;
Pointing their booms to the oceans bed
And anon to the wind swept skies.

— Ernest Shackleton, composed aboard the tramp steamer Monmouthshire, en route from China to Europe (1894/5)

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Mrs. Chippy

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

The noble mouser of the Endurance, and his master.

“I think the cat was more important to him than the Polar Medal.” – Tom McNeish, grandson; quoted in BBC Science/Nature.

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Soccer

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton
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Explorer Chores

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

James Wordie, Alfred Cheetam, Alexander Macklin

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Types of Ice

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

Condensed from Sea-Ice Nomenclature, by J. M. Wordie.

Slush or Sludge.
Pancake Ice. (Ruffled, turned-up edges.)
Young Ice. (Black ice. Ice flowers. Young ice.)
Land floes.
Floe. (Light floes, and heavy floes. Heavy floes covered with deep snow in the Antarctic.)
Field.
Hummocking. (All the processes of pressure formation.)
Hummocky floes.
The pack. (General reference term for sea ice, no matter what the composition.)
Pack ice. (Can be close or tight.)
Drift Ice. (A stage in the breaking down of pack ice, commonly near the swell.)
Brash.
Bergy bits.
Growlers. (“Treacherous fragments of ice that float with surface wash.”)
Crack.
Lead or Lane. (Navigable cracks.)
Pool.

[There are also 6 kinds from the Danish charts — unbroken polar ice, land floe, great ice fields, tight pack ice, open ice, bay ice, and brash. Bay ice is more generally known as young ice.]

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Fairy Ice

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

It was now light twenty-four hours a day; the sun disappeared only briefly near midnight, leaving prolonged, magnificent twilight. Often during this period, the phenomenon of an “ice shower”, caused by the moisture in the air freezing and settling to earth, lent a fairyland atmosphere to the scene. Millions of delicate crystals, frequently thin and needlelike in shape, descended in sparkling beauty through the twilight air.

— Ernest Shackleton, South

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It’s a Long Way to Tipperary

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Ernest Shackleton

[It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, sung by Tom Yorke, 1914; as played on a 78]

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