Treasures

What lay ahead? Shackleton couldn’t be sure. The drift of the
ice was haphazard. Sometimes they were carried north, sometimes
east or west.
The months of February and March dragged by.
By early April, the ice floe that Patience Camp sat on was
alarmingly small, and leads of open sea surrounded them. Killer
whales spouted in the water as they hunted seals. The men could
feel the rise and fall of the ocean lifting their floe, and some of them
began to feel seasick.
On April 8, Shackleton gave the order: “Launch the boats!”
Thousands of birds circled overhead as the crew shoved the
boats off the ice. Sitting on their gear and their last crates of food,
the men bent to the oars. Waves crashed against icebergs. The
three boats picked their way through the maze of ice, pulling north
toward the open ocean.
As the light faded, they began looking out for an ice floe to
camp on. Shackleton soon spotted one. Luckily, a large seal was
sleeping on it, and the men quickly killed it and cooked it for dinner.
Then they pitched their tents and tried to get some rest.
Launch the boats! The crew, with
their provisions, crowd into three
small lifeboats . . . and set off for
Elephant Island...
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