During the evening of the 18th January while taking Mike Barry back to the ‘Tom Crean’ from the beach on Point Wild, he jokingly asked if he could come back "home" on Pelagic for dinner. "No vacancies" was the response. After Patrick and I dropped him back onto the little wooden boat, he and Jamie Young started rowing out towards open waters. It is summer in the Southern Ocean and the Tom Crean encountered no pack ice, apart from a few big bergs, as they pulled away from the coast of Elephant Island.

With nightfall, poor visibility caused us to lose visual contact with Tom Crean and we spent the night estimating their course and holding down Pelagic’s speed so we did not get too far ahead. They sailed in calm waters all through the night, with a fair NW breeze of 8 to 12 knots. At our 0900 radio schedule, it was a relief to identify their position 10 miles to the west of us. By noon we were by their side. The breeze was still gentle and the mood on board cheerful.

We were informed of their chicken curry and potato dinner made from dried food mix. The hot ‘hoosh’, the "sloppy food that can be consumed by drinking", used as rations for the Endurance expedition, probably had much the same taste! Hoosh was made of lard, oatmeal, beef protein, vegetable protein, salt and sugar in 1/2 pound bricks and Shackleton hoarded a supply for the James Caird boat journey during the drift on the ice to Elephant Island. To supplement their rations during this period the party had existed largely on seal meat, which had the added advantage of reducing the risk of scurvy, an endemic problem for Polar explorers at this time.

Whilst sitting in the James Caird 80 years ago, Worsley wrote in his diary..."the worst feature of the meals was insufficient head room to sit upright. The chest is pressed down on the stomach; one swallows with difficulty". Worsley continued.... "to get inside the cabin you braced yourself up - or rather down; crawling and wriggling on chest and stomach, you insinuated yourself between the ballast and the thwart, half way down you paused for breath - you became exhausted and doubted if life was worth living."

On the Tom Crean there is one less crew member but the space inside is still not sufficient for all. According to Paddy Barry the "cabin" is beginning to smell! It is also very cold below and wet with condensation, but, unlike the cockpit, it is at least out of the wind! Gloves and hats must also be worn inside.

All day we followed the little Tom Crean while Skip, Patrick and I worked on keeping Pelagic’s speed under control. We sailed with 4 reefs in the mainsail, no jib and a reduced staysail. In the right wind Tom Crean seems to reach a speed of 4.5, maybe 5 knots, because she is so light. But the average speed is 2-3 knots, zig zagging in the wind trying to make both course and speed.

At 2300 local, as it got darker and the fog became thicker and we entered our second night at sea. Again we lost visual contact. Until 0230 we were able to follow the Crean on the radar and then suddenly they vanished from the screen. Our anxieties were relieved at daybreak with sight of the little dark red sail on the horizon. At the 0900 radio schedule, the crew told us they started getting a few seas coming into the cockpit and so they took down the mainsail - possibly the reason why the Tom Crean suddenly disappeared from the radar.

Paddy told us that the inner layers of their clothes are becoming a little damp, but otherwise they were 'comfortable'. Shackleton and his 5 companions had no waterproof clothes and they were soaked to the bone with each freezing wave that broke on board. It was their own body heat that kept the clothes warm enough for them to survive the passage.

Although we have covered a good 120 nautical miles since leaving Point Wild, our progress is reminiscent of Shackleton’s. As Worsely remarked, "with all the efforts to beat to windward, I reckoned that we were in the same position as the day before. This was disheartening…" And so it is for us, as the wind is shifting more to the north the Tom Crean has started to drift towards the east, making little progress towards South Georgia. The 3rd day at sea may mark a change in the weather: the prognosis is for a large area of low pressure to slowly approach our waters. This could bring the first gale for the Tom Crean.

Elena Caputo