One story in the book The Sextant by David Barrie, especially captivated me. The qualities of the two principal men in particular deserve mention. Do you notice any additional character traits that you admire?
Joshua : Would you like to know about another two friends?
Tina : Yes! Who are they?
Joshua : They are two Englishmen. One is named Sir Ernest Shackleton and the other is Frank Worsley.
Tina : Those are nice names. How did they become friends?
Joshua : They liked each other when they met in London, England, in the spring of 1914, but they really became friends on an expedition to Antarctica. They planned to cross the Antarctic continent, but their ship the Endurance was crushed by ice on January 19, 1915.
Tina : I am sad that the ship sunk. What could the crewmen do?
Joshua : They were also very disappointed. More critically, they needed to save the crew of 28 men. Shackleton was the ship’s captain and Worsley was the ship’s navigator.
Tina : How was ship navigation done in 1915?
Joshua : It was done using various equipment : the sextant, chronometer, nautical almanac and charts.
Tina : Was the sextant as reliable as GPS?
Joshua : It depended on the skill of the navigator, and it also depended on weather and other factors that allowed for a precise reading. When the weather was cloudy, a sextant could not be used at all.
Tina : The navigator needed to see the sky clearly?
Joshua : Yes, the navigator measured the angle between the horizon and principal stars, like the sun or the star Antares.
Tina : That sounds difficult on a rocking boat… Where did the men travel after the Endurance was sunk?
Joshua : They drifted some 600 miles northward for five months, towards Elephant Island. Then they set out in three smaller boats on April 9, 1916 and reached the island’s rocky beach on April 15. There twenty crewmen camped under two up-turned boats, and, on April 24, six men sailed from there toward the island of South Georgia, where there was a whaling station. They sailed 800 nautical miles in a boat that was only 23.5 feet long, the James Caird (which can be found today at Dulwich College in South London).
Tina : Was the sailing difficult?
Joshua : Very difficult. There was a storm that lasted ten days. On the tenth day, Worsley took sights, but the sun was blurry, so he was not sure of his accuracy. Therefore, Shackleton would not agree to sail northward, because he was afraid of missing the island. Instead, the men sailed west, toward the island’s southern shore.
Tina : Did they reach the island of South Georgia?
Joshua : That same day, they spotted a piece of kelp, and more the next day. They also saw a shag—a bird that rarely travel’s far from land. On the third day, they saw the island.
Tina : Hooray!
Joshua : Yes, they were happy!! But their troubles were not over, just then they were hit by a hurricane.
Tina : Oh, no!
Joshua : They struggled through it and finally, desperate with thirst and completely exhuasted, they finally reached the shore. Now they found fresh water, but three men still needed to travel 20 miles as the crow flies over mountains and glaciers. On Saturday, May 20, 1916, after walking for 36 hours, they finally reached the whaling station.
Tina : Oh, what a relief!
Joshua : Yes, now Worsley sailed back to pick up the three men on the southern beach. When they returned, an old captain told them that it was an honour to shake their hands, he said: “These are men!”
Tina : Very brave men!
Joshua : During the next hundred days, Shackleton and Worsley made four attempts to rescue the rest of the crewmen on Elephant Island who were trying to survive the Antarctic winter under the shelter of two upturned boats on a diet of seal blubber. As they were finally nearing the beach, Shackleton was counting the people crawling out from under the upturned boats: “Two—five—seven…” “They’re all there, Skipper. They are all safe!”
Tina : Hip, hip, hooray!
Joshua : Not one man had been lost!
Tina : What an amazing story!! Shackleton did not give up!
Joshua : Yes, he valued each man’s life!
Tina : Worsley was a skilled navigator.
Joshua : He was modest in evaluating the accuracy of the information that he had, and he used all the information that he could gather. This is a valuable skill for you too.
Tina : Yes, it can help me to understand my place in the world.
