Martin Thomas – “Recreating Shackleton’s extraordinary voyage” – Feb 2017

“It is just over a century since Sir Ernest Shackleton’s celebrated Antarctic expedition when the Endurance was crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea. On reaching Elephant Island, Shackleton set out with 5 men in the James Caird on one of the most remarkable and hazardous small boat journeys ever made. After 800 miles in the Southern Ocean in winter, he landed on South Georgia. With two companions he then crossed the unknown mountain range to Stromness to seek help.”

This talk gave an illustrated account of Shackleton’s extraordinary polar adventures with an added postscript on the speaker’s own adventure in sailing to South Georgia; following the exact route taken by Shackleton across the mountains.

Martin Thomas gave a wonderful account of his voyage on Skip Novak’s Pelagic yacht to follow in Shackleton’s journey. He not only had inspiring recent and original photographs from both Shackleton’s expedition and taken recently from Pelagic. He also had amazing old film footage and even radio recordings from Shackleton himself.

9th February 2017