The Tide Always Turn.

21:00 on Wednesday the 22nd November, 2006

Disapointment was turned to elation yesterday evening, when the full complement of the Beyond Endurance expedition team successfully landed at Cape Valentine on Elephant Island. This was the original landing point for Shackleton and his crew after taking to their three lifeboats following the break-up of the sea ice and their hasty departure from Ocean Camp.

It was quite obvious why the marooned sailors quickly moved on from Cape Valentine to seek refuge in Cape Wild. The beach at Cape Valentine was surrounded by vertical continuous mountain cliffs, highly prone to avalanches and hemmed in by glaciers at either end. The high water mark was no more that five feet back from the shoreline, so the men would have been in a most precarious situation, not to mention their exposure and vulnerability to the storms of the Southern Ocean.

Our own landing was in a dumpy sea, where a mistimed approach had us surfing at speed down a large wave and up onto the steep gravel beach. The shore crew jumped for safety as our boat ground to a sudden halt in front of a retreating wave. Our departure was equally memorable when our initial lunge forward into the surf was stalled by two largish waves braking over the bow of our inflatable and on out over the transom at the stern. People where that elated with the successful landing the drenching waves couldn't damped their spirits.

The high spirits continued into the late hours following a competitive charity table quiz which generated over $1,000 for a special children's school in Ushuaia. We had left Elephant Island and were well on our way for the Antarctic Continent. Our next port of call was to be the Chilean Benardo O'Higgins Scientific Base. No doubt my family Bernardo O'Higgins connection will add a further dimension to the theme of the Beyond Endurance expedition "Ordinary People doing Extraordinary Things".

I now look forward to eventually landing on the Antarctic Continent.

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