On our last day in the UK, Dave and I travelled out to Dulwich College where Ernest Shackleton had been a student. The College now houses a "Shackleton Room" with various bits of history from his remarkable adventures. The boat, James Caird, is located here. I'd always wanted to see it after reading about his voyage on Endeavour and its aftermath. This is the boat that he sailed for 800 miles across the Southern Ocean, from Elephant Island to South Georgia. It wasn't all that small, to my mind, but remembering what the sea was like on the south coast of New Zealand, with waves that came all the way from Antarctica, I can't imagine how these folks survived. Five men were on board and they successfuly navigated themselves by looking at the stars and making mathematical calculations. It is one of the great epic survival stories and anyone with a longing for that kind of reading, I'd highly recommend anything written by Shackleton.
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