Sunday, June 19, 2016

Issuma - Anchoring in an Antarctic Gale


Richard Hudson and crew are northbound east of the Dominican Republic on a heading  that looks like a straight line to Bermuda.  His now peaceful course leads to warm reminiscence about the time spent in Antarctica.
Anchoring in the lee of Elephant Island to wait out a gale is not like stepping onto the porch to watch a summer thunderstorm.  
You don't snap selfies with your iPhone.  You worry about the holding ground.  You remember that this is the last place before the Drake Passage - five hundred miles to the next safe harbor.  You remember that this rock which juts out of the southern ocean like Yosemite's El Capitan, is where the shipwrecked crew of the Endurance spent four starving months before Capt. Shackleton was able to charter a ship that made it through the ice pack to pick you up.
Richard Hudson's matter of fact account of how Issuma held its ground is, I think, memorable in its simplicity.  Click on the link above.