ENDURANCE22: Dan's Diary #02

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2022

⏱️ 3 minutes

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Summary

Dan gives a quick update on the expedition's progress towards Antarctica from a rather wet and windy deck as the crew prepare for a storm to hit.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's dawn on the morning of the 12th of February, we're just passing the South Sandwich Islands
0:12.6	between that and South Georgia and we've woken up to a big storm, it's blind gusting up to
0:17.2	well 50 or 60 knots apparently, so we've got a storm force 10, it's coming in off our
0:22.8	starboard quarter so it's behind us, so these towering waves like mountains are rising
0:27.5	up behind us, my corkscrewing over them and I've come back to the stern deck here and the
0:31.7	French Subsea crew are frantically trying to secure the equipment, there is water just
0:39.7	ankle deep racing across the deck back here and they're working in these conditions, life jackets
0:44.1	on harnesses on, just below me now, trying to lash down bits that inevitably have come loose,
0:50.8	trying to put extra top allens over wiring over electronics and secure everything,
0:57.8	that absolutely nightmare for this expedition is that we break something, we damage something
1:03.9	on route down here, but it's an amazing scene, the deck, the working deck here is a wash
1:08.4	that's water crashing from one side to the other, the French crew heroically tying themselves
1:15.2	and tying their equipment down and all the while you can't see the horizon, you're going to see
1:19.6	these pale blue monsters, these gigantic waves of breaking tops coming crashing down around the
1:26.7	hull of the ship, some of them landing right on the deck, I've only been out there force 10,
1:32.6	months or twice before and you forget how the surface of the sea takes a very different aspect,
1:37.6	it becomes almost entirely white, spin drift, breaking waves, like blue erated water all around
1:45.0	the ship, spray carried from meters in the wind every time a wave breaks, there's no chance what's
1:51.4	to ever have seen the south sandwich islands because the visibility is probably only about a mile,
1:55.9	it's getting very very cold now, it's just hard holding my equipment like in this conditions,
1:59.4	it makes you wonder how on earth Shacketton was able to sail through these waters in an open
2:03.9	boat day after day with none of the specialist equipment that we have today on board ship,
	...

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