Endurance mug

The Endurance was a British polar exploration ship, most famous for its role in Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship set sail for Antarctica via the Weddell sea with the aim of Shackleton leading an expedition to cross the continent and be met on the other side by the Ross sea party before returning home on their second ship, The Aurora. However, the Endurance became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell sea and never made landfall.

For months, the crew battled extreme cold as the ice slowly crushed the ship. In November 1915, the Endurance finally sank. Despite the loss, Shackleton led his crew in a harrowing journey across ice floes, the sea, and mountains. Remarkably, all 28 crew members survived the expedition against incredible odds.

The wreck of the Endurance was discovered on March 5, 2022, over a century after it sank in 1915. The ship was found nearly 10,000 feet (about 3,000 meters) below the surface of the Weddell Sea, remarkably well-preserved due to the cold, oxygen-poor waters.

Mensun Bound played a key role in the discovery of the Endurance as the Director of Exploration for the Endurance22 expedition. With decades of experience in underwater archaeology, Bound led the search efforts in the Weddell Sea, where the ship had been lost.

His expertise and leadership were crucial in deploying advanced technology, such as underwater drones, to locate the wreck in extreme conditions.

The search is described in his book ‘ The Ship beneath the ice ‘