Quotes from Alfred Lansing

and so tough that it cannot be worked with ordinary tools.

They were up at six the following morning, November 5, and nearly everyone returned to the ship.

also be 6 miles closer to Stromness Bay on the opposite side of the island where the whaling stations were situated.

It was an utterly carefree journey as the Caird drove smartly across the sparkling water.

was populated by hundreds of sea elephants, enough to keep them supplied with food and fuel indefinitely

The only superfluous item Shackleton permitted was Worsley's diary.

At twelve-forty, Shackleton gave the order in a quiet voice. "Launch the boats.

It was one-thirty in the afternoon when the crews scrambled on board each boat;

The first few minutes were crucial—and they were maddening

The encircling ice fouled the oars, and collisions were unavoidable

The sledge astern of the Dudley Docker continually got hung up on bits of ice

There is an immense area of persistent low pressure in the vicinity of the Antarctic Circle

In either case, for the moment, luck was on their side.

often studiously understated language of the U.S. Navy's

Sailing Direction for Antarctica, these winds are described categorically:

They are often of hurricane intensity and with gust velocities sometimes attaining to 150 to 200 miles per hour.

The overcast sky seemed almost alive with birds—Cape pigeons, terns, fulmars

as nowhere else on earth, the sea girdles the globe

Whales, too, seemed everywhere. They surfaced on all sides, sometimes frighteningly close

The waves thus produced have become legendary among seafaring men. They are called Cape Horn Rollers

The James Caird was in the lead with Shackleton at the tiller.

after a few minutes Worsley angrily cut it loose.

Thus, while Shackleton was undeniably out of place, even inept, in a great many everyday situations

He was, as one of his men put it, "the greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none.