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Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a final attempt to get his men home, Ernest Shackleton and his crew have to get through the Drake Passage, the most dangerous stretch of ocean in the world. And that’s just the beginning. When they reach their goal of South Georgia island, they realize the only way to reach civilization is to cross 29 miles of impassable ice and snow on foot - something no one has ever done before.

Nearly a century later, Henry Worsley and his team push themselves to complete the final 97 miles to the South Pole to finish what their relatives started.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to against the odds at free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:15.0	It's midnight on May 5th,
0:18.0	1916. Ernest Shackleton squats at the helm of the James Caird trying to balance himself on the rocking boat.
0:25.0	They've been out at sea for 11 days. He knew the 800 mile crossing to South Georgia Island would be dangerous,
0:32.0	but he's never seen anything as fierce as the Drake passage.
0:37.0	The winds have been coming at them at 100 miles an hour. The waves are almost 20 feet tall.
0:43.0	Each swell grabs the boat, lifting it higher and higher, through the boiling surf into the air.
0:49.0	One moment they're surrounded by hills of water, the next they're on top of the world,
0:54.0	overlooking an endless seascape of dark gray rollers and white horses.
1:00.0	And then they're hurtling back down below. Water crashes over the sides and sends a small crew into a frenzy to bail before the next one hits.
1:10.0	One wave was so violent it ripped the boat's anchor clear away.
1:15.0	Shackleton watches warsleys struggling with the rudder, trying to control the boat through the gusts and the snowfall.
1:22.0	There's only compasses dead reckoning in the occasional glimpse of a star.
1:27.0	They both know if they boat off course, they could miss South Georgia entirely and never be heard of again.
1:34.0	Skipper, I'll take the rudder. You get some sleep.
1:38.0	Inks boss, maybe I'll lay down for an hour.
1:41.0	Shackleton is left alone at the front of the boat. He watches the angry black clouds churn across the horizon.
1:49.0	And suddenly he sees a silver light in the sky.
1:52.0	Whether it's clearing boys, and then he hears the familiar hiss.
1:59.0	It's not a break in the clouds. It's the foaming crest of a wave.
2:04.0	The biggest wave he's seen in his life, and it's heading straight forward.
2:11.0	For God's sake, hold on, it's got us.
	...

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