WHAT A WRECK!

A South African maritime team is being hailed for its role in the discovery of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, which sank 107 years ago

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

IT WAS lodged so deep in a frozen sea that nobody who dared venture that way was able to find it. For more than 100 years the Endurance was nestled at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, disturbed only by marine creatures that dwell in the dark, darting in and out of the wooden wreck.

Now, 107 years after it sank, the ship has been found – the proverbial needle in a haystack, discovered by the Endurance22 Expedition team. Pictures of the remarkably well-preserved ship made global headlines. It was a much-needed dose of good news in a world beset with war and worry.

“We’ve successfully completed the world’s most difficult shipwreck search, battling constantly shifting sea ice, blizzards and temperatures dropping to -18°C,” mission leader and veteran polar geographer John Shears announced.

“We’ve achieved what many people said was impossible. The discovery of the wreck is an amazing achievement.”

But finding the Endurance, which sank after being crushed by ice during an expedition by British explorer Ernest Shackleton, wouldn’t have been possible without the contribution of South African ship’s master Captain Knowledge Bengu and his crew of the icebreaker SA Agulhas II.

“On 28 February we were fortunate to start discovering part of the debris and we knew more or less we were in the right area,” Bengu says.

The mission was launched by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, which contacted the SA department of forestry, fisheries and the environment to get the SA Agulhas II involved.