Endurance Part 4: 1-2, Lansing

The first section of Part 4 follows the crew of the Endurance as they set sail upon the three boats that they have left: the Dudley Docker, the James Caird, and the Stancomb Wills. The largest of the 3 boats was the Caird, which was 22 feet long. The men were so ecstatic to be rid of their previous setting: Patience Camp, which had been their jail cell for four months. However, they did not factor into their equation how perilous the open sea would be. Soon into their journey to Clarence Island a two-foot high pack of ice starting charging towards their boat, as a result of opposite flowing currents. (One can compare this to a small wave of pure ice rushing towards onesself). Shackleton decided that it was not wise to sleep in the boats, so they stopped at that he believed to be sturdy enough. However, in the middle of the night the floe cracked right in the middle of No. 4 tent, leaving one man in the water and Shackleton separated from the rest of his crew. After rescuing the man, Ernie Holness, from the water they then sent a boat to retrieve Shackleton from the other half of the broken floe. The next stop that the men made for the night was on what looked to be half floe-half ice berg, but it looked sturdy. Hurley wrote in his diary, " '...pray God [this floe] will remain entire throughout the night' " (149). Lucky for the men, it did. However, they had to make a quick move on for the next morning the berg began to be crushed underneath them. When they made it safely to the boats, Worsley tried to map out their coordinates. It seemed that in all of their hurry from one deadly floe to the next that the crew actually lost ground in trying to reach Clarence Island. Instead of being 40 miles away, they were now 61 miles away.