Eating Penguin

By Shawn Albert Shepard

VIDEO	AUDIO
Zoom in from the height of a satellite on a map of the Antarctic continent and the Weddell Sea	BCKGRND Rising crescendo of blowing wind and booming, creaking ice. NARR The Antarctic is the highest, coldest, driest, windiest, iciest continent in the world. And the Weddell Sea is the coldest body of water in the Antarctic.
A ghostly ship leaning at an awkward angle, with broken masts, torn sails, and surrounded by ice, is barely visible through blowing snow.	BCKGRND Falling crescendo of blowing wind and booming, creaking ice fades deep into the background. NARR Ernest Shackleton, the Endurance, and her crew were beset there in the Antarctic summer of 1915.
Truck across a picture of the General San Martin beset in sea ice as if seen from a helicopter.	NARR 60 summers later in 1975, the Argentine icebreaker General San Martin has become icebound in the same waters.
Several pictures of the Glacier and its crew at work in the Weddell Sea quickly fade in and out on top of a picture of the Glacier.	BCKGRND Water and ice slap against the hull. Chains clank. NARR There was no chance of rescue for the Endurance. But, fortunately for the General San Martin, the US Coast Guard Cutter Glacier is nearby supporting the International Weddell Sea Oceanographic Expedition.
Several pictures of Antarctic stations, bases, and personnel fade in and out on top of a map the Antarctic.	NARR The Glacier is veteran. It has been establishing and maintaining bases, and providing support for scientists in the Antarctic for 19 summers.
A picture of a helicopter appears out of the corner of a picture of the Glacier’s flight deck and dissolves into a picture of the two captains greeting each other. This cuts to a picture of the officers from both ships sitting around a table in the Glacier’s wardroom.	BCKGRND Whap, whap of helicopter blades drifts into conversational sound. NARR A helicopter is sent to scout the sea ice around the General San Martin and retrieve its Captain. The Captains and officers of the American and Argentinean ships meet on the Glacier and make plans.
An animation of ice and water spraying runs on top of a picture of the Glacier breaking ice.	BCKGRND Spray splashes across the ice. NARR Soon, the 9000-ton, 300-foot, 21,000-horsepower Glacier is breaking a passage through the ice toward the General San Martin.
Picture of Glacier breaking ice, bow rising above the ice, then smashing down.	NARR The Glacier breaks ice up to 4 feet thick at a steady 3 knots. Occasionally, the bow rises out of the water where the ice thickens, but the tremendous weight of the ship smashes the ice or pushes it aside. When the ice becomes as much as 20 feet thick, the Glacier resorts to the “back and ram” technique; it backs up through the ice it has broken, rams the ice at full speed, slides on top of it, cracks and crushes it beneath the weight of the hull, and then slides off to try again.
An animation of bubbles runs on top of a pictures of divers surveying the ships propellers.	BCKGRND Air bubbles in water. NARR The Glacier is backing up in preparation for another run at the ice when two of the six propellers are sheared off by the steel hard ice. Later, a scientist from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who was aboard the Glacier, would tell a San Diego Union reporter, “There was a kind of clanking sound and then the ship started to vibrate abnormally. Divers were sent down and they confirmed what everyone feared had happened. That cut our power by nearly half.”
Pictures of stations, bases, ships, and aircraft pop out of a map of the Antarctic.	NARR Just as Shackleton did on February 24, 1915, the Captains of the Glacier and the General San Martin reluctantly begin preparations on March 1, 1975 to spend the winter. Wintering over isn’t the hardship it was 60 years earlier. BCKGRND Aviations sounds. NARR Most of the Glacier crew heads home, first by helicopter to one of the many Antarctic stations, and then to Argentina by military aircraft. Supplies are flown in for the skeleton crew that will stay behind. With a little maintenance and judicious ballasting, the ships will easily survive the pressures of the winter ice and keep the remaining crew safe.
Pictures of sailors and pop out of a maps of the Weddell Sea and South America.	NARR Still, there are problems. A large group of sailors arrive in Buenos Aires to a heroes’ welcome with nothing but the clothes they are wearing, while a single sailor is stranded at a desert air base with their luggage. BCKGRND Penguins squawking. NARR             A handful of sailors are stranded at a small scientific station by a week-long snowstorm and have to eat penguin meat after going through the station’s entire year’s rations.
Animation of ice spreading open.	BCKGRND Narration is punctuated with loud booming and cracking. NARR Then, as suddenly as the disaster happened, the Weddell Sea releases its grip. Although the ice looks solid and fixed, it’s constantly heaving, shifting, and drifting upon the sea beneath it, driven by the winds and the ocean currents. Sometimes, open water (a lead) appears just where it’s needed. During a scouting trip in the brief daylight, the helicopter crew reports that a path through the ice has opened up. Both the Glacier and the General San Martin make their escape.
Pictures of crew members and the Glacier in Ushuaia, Argentina	NARR Less than a month after preparing to spend the winter, the Glacier picks up the last of her returning crew from Ushuaia, Argentina, near the tip of South America and limps home. The crew of the Endurance didn’t reach the tip of South America until September 1916, after 18 months of struggle and hardship.
A ghostly ship leaning at an awkward angle, with broken masts, torn sails, and surrounded by ice, is barely visible through blowing snow.	BCKGRND Rising crescendo of blowing wind and booming, creaking ice. NARR And the Endurance … The Endurance haunts the Weddell Sea still.