The day started early, but BJ captured what passes for sunrise here at about 4:45 AM with the sun in the far northeast.

Then she went back to bed. At 7:30 AM we were alongside of Elephant Island on the northeast end of the South Shetland Islands. Elephant Island is of historic importance because of the Shackleton expedition. In January of 1915 Shackleton’s ship Endurance was trapped in the ice in the Weddell Sea, eventually being crushed by the ice and sinking in November. The crew lived on the ice for months as it drifted, eventually using lifeboats to reach Elephant Island. Shackleton, along with 5 others, took one of the small lifeboats and sailed, mostly by dead reckoning the 800 miles to South Georgia Island. They crossed over the mountains to the inhabited whaling station and then succeeded, on their third attempt, in saving the other 22 members of the crew, who had been subsisting on seal meat for months. No one died. The story of this expedition is told by his second in command in the book Endurance which is well worth reading.

Here are some views of Elephant Island, which was so named because of the Elephant Seals who live there and also the long thin eastern peninsula that looks like an Elephant’s trunk.

I forgot to take a picture of dessert.

Today, January 3rd was an at sea day. We did nothing but eat and nap.

Tomorrow will be at Stanley, the Falkland Islands, or Las Malavinas if you are from Argentina.