The Circle Volume 12 by John Stretch

THE CIRCLE

VOLUME 12 MARCH 2022

In this issue: 1. Endurance The South African polar research vessel S.A. Agulhas 11 sailed from Cape Town last month in search of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, sunk in Antarctica’s Weddel Sea in 1915.

2. Cape St Francis In the mid-1950s, Leighton Hulett bought an isolated farm in St. Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. He dredged a swamp and built the first marina in South Africa, a canal system refreshed by the tides.

1. ENDURANCE

Introduction The South African polar research vessel and icebreaker S.A. Agulhas II, under command of Captain Knowledge Bengu, left Cape Town in February 2022 in search of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, which sunk in Antarctica’s Weddel Sea in 1915. The expedition was a success. It took the crew 33 days, using S.A. Agulhas II helicopters and remote-controlled underwater vehicles, to pinpoint the Endurance’s location in March 2022 (this month).

The Endurance

The well-preserved wreck of Shackleton’s ship the Endurance was found three kms below the surface, some six kms south of the position recorded by the ship’s captain on its last voyage in 1915.

The Endurance

In what the expedition leaders termed “the world’s most challenging shipwreck search” the researchers filmed the wreck, which is protected as a historical monument.

The Endurance

The underwater images show the three-masted wooden ship in good condition, with gold-leaf letters reading “Endurance” still fixed to the stern. The ship's lacquered wooden helm is still standing upright.

Shackleton Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 – 1922) was one of three towering figures in the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration, the others being Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, the famous “Scott of the Antarctic”.

Shackleton first reached the Antarctic on Captain Scott’s Discovery expedition of 1901–1904. His relationship with Scott was stormy and he was sent home early on health grounds. During a second voyage between 1907 and 1909, he led three companions to within 180 kilometres of the South Pole, for which he was knighted by King Edward VII.

Shackleton After Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole in December 1911, Shackleton planned his own expedition. He wanted to become the first person to travel across Antarctica from end to end, via the South Pole.

But disaster struck when his ship, the Endurance, was trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea before the expedition could start.

The ice crushed the ship’s timbers, and the 28 men on board had no choice but to abandon ship. They loaded food and provisions into three lifeboats and set up camp on ice floes, watching their ship disappear below the ice.

Shackleton After months of drifting northwards, with no communication with the outside world, Shackleton decided to use the lifeboats to try to reach the inhospitable and uninhabited Elephant Island, some 5 days away. He led his crew on this dangerous journey through icy waters and raging storms, boosting the morale of the seasick hungry men in the freezing cold.

After settling his crew on the island, Shackleton and five others then set out in a ship’s lifeboat to find help on South Georgia, a remote island whaling community. They reached the island after 16 gruelling days. He and two others then climbed over the mountainous island to reach the whaling station at Stromness. Shackleton was able to rescue the men waiting on Elephant Island and bring them home without loss of life, a heroic feat of bravery and endurance and his greatest triumph.

Shackleton In 1921, he returned to the Antarctic for a final expedition, but died of a heart attack while his ship was moored in South Georgia. At his wife's request, he was buried there. The wreck of the Endurance was found this month - just over a century later. Away from his expeditions, Shackleton's life was restless and unfulfilled. He launched business ventures which failed, and he died heavily in debt. Upon his death, he was praised in the press but was thereafter largely forgotten. Later in the 20th century, Shackleton was "rediscovered" by writers and business schools, and he has become a role model for leadership by example in extreme circumstances.

Scott of the Antarctic In 1908 Britain was determined to be the first nation to reach the South Pole. The British naval officer Captain Robert Falcon Scott was chosen to lead the polar expedition. Scott spent his entire life in the royal navy before he was chosen to lead the Antarctic expedition.

Scott organised his journey based on British naval norms and traditions. He chose naval officers without polar experience, and trained them in the mountains of Scotland.

Roald Amundsen Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, mounted a rival expedition to reach the South pole before Scott. Amundsen lived among Eskimos for 6 months, and chose experienced explorers and skiers for his final team. Amundsen’s group wore snowshoes, skis and furs.

Scott and his team wore army boots and naval oilskins. For transportation Scott chose horses, Amundsen used dogs.

Amundsen and his party had a perfect trip both to the pole and on the return journey. They exceeded all their targets and arrived back at base camp with surplus food.

The South Pole Scott’s planning proved inadequate. His horses died, his equipment failed and his food ran out. Frostbitten, starving and exhausted, the British pressed on. On reaching the South Pole, they found a tent with a note from Amundsen inside. He had reached the Pole ten days earlier.

Two team members died within days of starting the return journey. The remaining three members pitched their final camp only eleven miles from the last food dump but were unable to reach it. Alone, frozen, starving and disconsolate, they died too.

A gallant death When news came through that Scott and his men had died, there was a public outpouring of grief in Britain. He made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and was seen by the public as a gallant hero, a role model for young people. Yet had he come home alive, it is likely he would have been soon forgotten - the man who lost the race.

Scott’s heroic reputation was attacked in 1979 in Roland Huntford's book, “The last place on earth”. For the first time, the British and Norwegian expeditions to the south pole were forensically examined side by side and Scott was found wanting. Huntford blamed Scott’s reliance on naval norms and culture as the ultimate cause of his expedition’s failure.

True heroes Amundsen continued exploration of the polar regions for some years. In 1928 while searching for a lost colleague, his aircraft disappeared over the Barents’ Sea and he was never seen again. Shackleton didn't lose a man when the Endurance was crushed in the Antarctic ice, but remains a footnote in history, while to many, Scott retains his heroic status. The man who dies a failure is sometimes admired above the survivor. In 2002, Sir Ernest Shackleton was voted eleventh in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Scott didn’t feature.

2. CAPE ST FRANCIS

Introduction In the mid-1950s, Leighton Hulett (of the Natal sugar family) bought an isolated farm in St. Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The harsh land was no good for farming and he built a fishing camp, inviting people from Humansdorp and Port Elizabeth to enjoy the abundant fishing. The camp flourished and, over time, visitors bought land from Hulett and built holiday homes. Today St Francis Bay is a thriving town.

North of the town centre you will find the St Francis Bay canals, the famous marina area with its upmarket homes and guesthouses.

The St Francis Canals Leighton Hulett swopped a house in St Francis village for 179 hectares of swampland north next to the Kromme River. He dredged the swamp and built a canal system refreshed by the tides. The St Francis Bay canals became the first marina in Southern Africa. Hulett insisted on controlling the building designs, allowing only homes with white walls and high-pitched black thatch roofs to be built, the controls entrenched in local bylaws.

Venice on the coast Today, St Francis is famous for its canals. The upmarket properties on the canals are highly sought after, providing a mini-Venice on the coast, a major tourist attraction with restaurants, cafes and guest houses. A man-made spit separates the houses from the ocean, a good place to walk.

The house prices and the insurance premiums keep going up and up. In earlier years terrible fires swept through the marina, destroying many of the lovely thatched homes, mostly since rebuilt with tiled roofs. Heartbreaking scenes of helicopters dumping water on burning thatch, and firefighters assisting homeowners to retrieve their possessions, circulated worldwide.

Water sport paradise You don’t have to surf, or fish, or play golf, to enjoy this lovely place. We had a great time exploring the area, visiting friends and family, cruising up and down the canals, and eating out in good restaurants. St Francis village is a water sport paradise with surfing, kite-surfing, and surf ski paddling on the waters in and around Cape St Francis.

For shopping, take St Francis Drive south to reach the St Francis Bay Village. You can continue south past the village and turn left down to Bruce’s Beauties beach for a coffee.

Or carry on to the Port of St Francis with its busy harbour, where St Francis Drive ends. Further south the R360 brings you to the Seal Point lighthouse and nature reserve.

Bruce’s beauties Readers of The Circle of a certain age, may recall the Beach Boys hit Surfing USA released in 1963, sparking a craze for beaches, boards and bikinis among teenagers worldwide. Leighton Hulett had no idea of the surfers’ paradise waves at Seal Point, or the world-famous righthand reelers at Supertubes in J-Bay, today just 30 minutes away.

The beach known as Bruce’s Beauties was named after American film producer Bruce Brown, who arrived in 1963 searching the world for great waves to film his documentary, The Endless Summer. Bruce and his crew arrived on a perfect day. A fresh south swell was running and the wind was offshore when they noticed a perfect wave peeling in the corner…. 5

The march of progress There were three huge sand dunes on Hulett’s seafront land and when the south-westerly winds blew (which was 75% of the time) it created sand banks in St. Francis Bay. These sand banks enabled the perfect waves at Bruce’s Beauties.

When the sea-front land became more valuable and the village grew, the dunes on the shoreline were stabilised with alien acacia shrubs, Port Jackson and Rooikrans willow. The sand stopped blowing onto the beaches, and the waves stopped pumping. Over the last 40 years the beaches have all but disappeared at St. Francis Bay. Today Bruce’s Beauties is a mere shadow of its former self. I’m told that Seals at Cape St Francis is the favoured break today for surfers.

Port St Francis Look out to sea on a clear night and you will see a fleet of small, brightly lit boats on the ocean, harvesting squid in St Francis Bay. Port St Francis was built in the mid-1990s to house these squid industry freezer vessels called Chokka boats. Today the port has grown into a pleasant commercial and recreational harbour with a small resort village. It lies in a sheltered nook of the bay and provides a safe anchorage for boats, pleasure craft, and oceangoing yachts. There are restaurants overlooking the small harbour that offer great seafood. Chokka boats routinely fish at night so fresh calamari is always available.

Seal Point A few minutes’ drive down the R360 brings you to the Seal Point Lighthouse. It’s a tall white building whose light can be seen from 28 sea miles away. Over the centuries many sailing vessels have been wrecked on the reefs that stretch out to sea more than a kilometre from Seal Point.

Since the lighthouse was built in 1878, ten more ships have been wrecked near Cape St Francis, the last being the South African cargo ship President Reitz in 1947. There is a good restaurant next to the lighthouse, recommended for breakfast or lunch, also open in the evenings for dinner.

The Circle The Circle is a private limited circulation magazine produced as a retirement hobby for family and friends, retirees, and fellow Midstreamers. The magazine is distributed monthly and is free of charge.

Fisherman’s cottage, Arniston, South Africa Photographs in this issue have been sourced from my personal collection, the Scott Institute in Cambridge UK, the Falklands Marine Heritage Trust and the Cape Argus. Further Antarctic exploration reading: Huntford, R, The last place on earth, Random House, 1983 Cherry-Gerrard, A, The worst journey in the world, Picador, 1922 Fiennes, R, Captain Scott, Hodder & Stoughton, 2003