What the Ice Gets, the Ice Keeps | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

Foreign large ice floors in the first months of 2022, Esther Horvath sailed through the frigid waters of the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica. Esther's a photographer, and she was documenting life aboard a research ship that can break through ice several feet thick. Sia's constantly moves, and you have to navigate between this moving ice flows, and sometimes it is, um, you don't see water in between, and you just see an endless white landscape. It almost feels that you look at a you look at an icy or snowy land, and then you see, as the ship moves forward, you see how it breaks, and then you see, you know, it's actually, it's an ocean.

More than a century before, the great polar explorer Ernest Shackleton sailed these same waters in 1915. The sea ice trapped his ship, the Endurance. Shackleton's crew watched as the ice squeezed Endurance tighter and tighter, breaking its wooden hull, and they saw Endurance sink into the polar sea. Shackleton told his men, “What the ice gets, the ice keeps,” and for more than a hundred years, that was true.

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ER: "And this is Overheard, a show where we eavesdrop on the wild conversations we have at Nat Geo and follow them to the edges of our big weird beautiful world. This week, inside the search for Endurance. Earlier this year, a team of researchers found it on an Antarctic seabed almost two miles deep. But first, adventure is never far away with a free one-month trial to Nat Geo Digital. For starters, there's full access to our stories online. You get new stories published every single day, and every Nat Geo issue ever published is in our digital archives. There's a whole lot more for subscribers, and you can check it all out for free at natgeo.com. Explore more."

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Esther Horvath: "Every time I go on an expedition, I always think that how can I make this a little bit different?" Esther Horvath is from Hungary, but she's made her mark photographing the polar regions. In fact, to join the Endurance Expedition, she had to fly from one project in the Arctic Circle all the way across the world to South Africa to board the research ship that would sail toward Antarctica.

"Just before we left for this expedition, and I was like transiting from the Arctic to Antarctica, I had a very strong feeling of that I’m going to write during this trip, also of course inspired by, uh, Shackleton. And then another idea came: What if this journal is not much… or not? It is the genre of Shackleton. So I named the journal ‘Shackleton's Very Last Journal.’ So I wrote it every day in a way that he would write, like he's, so to say, he's writing it, uh, as him being there with us and looking at us and being a part of this journey."

"Could you read me the first entry?"

"Yes, the first day. Okay. Turns, ‘Shackleton's Very Last Journal’ February 4th, 2022, Friday: I have waited a very long time for this moment. Exactly a hundred years I have dreamed of finding our ship again, seeing its beauty, and saying goodbye to it in a dignified way. I feel the energy of the people on board, each of them with a different reason for being on board but with the same goal: to find the ship, my ship, the Endurance. I wish everyone a good night's sleep, as they will need to rest before diving into the rough seas of the Southern Ocean in the days ahead."

"That's really nice. Thank you. How did you channel him?"

"I love to write. I really enjoy writing, and I always do it in a meditation. For this, I always found time. I got into my room, and which this time was I was alone in a room with one pet cabin. I never had this before, and I meditated, and then I wrote the diary of the day, the runner of the day."

"I was wondering if you could tell me the story of Endurance and Ernest Shackleton."

"Ernest Shackleton was, of course, one of the greatest explorers of her time or of history, but at the same time, he was an explorer who actually never achieved his goals. Like all the polar explorations he had, he never really got into the final line, into the final goal. Can you tell me the story of the Endurance and how it ended up on the bottom of the sea? So, uh, the Endurance with 28 men on board, including Shackleton, they wanted to cross the Antarctic completely, crossing the continent. That did not happen because the sea ice was so thick that his boat got stuck, and he was drifted for a long period of time with his crew, waiting that the sea ice, at the end of the summer, at the end of the melting season, will open, and then he can continue to sail.

"But before that happened, his boat was crashed in November 1915. The Endurance crew watched as their ship sank into the frigid Southern Ocean. They had no backup plan and no way of calling for help. For five more months, the crew camped on sea ice. Finally, in April 1916, Shackleton and five of his men set off on a last-ditch rescue attempt. They sailed a lifeboat 800 miles across the open ocean, and they made it to a whaling station on a remote island. Incredibly, every single crew member made it home alive."

"When we were on the Endurance Expedition, the only thing I could think about is that I don't understand how they survived on the seas for such a long time with very limited food, with the very challenging conditions of the cold. You can't escape from the cold, and it can get really a biting cold with the winds and then trying to survive off of raw meat, seal, birds, and Penguins. I just don’t understand how they could manage it."

"For Shackleton, it was very important that yes, they have to do their job, but he was very interested in what else they can do, and he was very interested in people who can sing, dance, or perform anything because he thought that's something very important on an expedition for the good mood. So it would be like, ‘Okay, it's your turn to be the entertainment tonight. Go sing us something.’ They had sing-along evenings and they had performance evenings; they had cross-dressing evenings to entertain themselves. And I think—not I think, I know—that's something very important on an expedition like that, to keep the good mood."

"So what was it like to be on the ship with the rest of the crew? Like, were you all leading sing-alongs at night?"

"It was a very beautiful expedition because of the reason that everyone had the same goal. So, yeah, there were many sing-alongs. We did many things what Shackleton did, for example, sing-alongs. In the evenings, there were like playing music, an open mic in the evening; there were a lot of activities, like playing games."

"Did they make you get up and sing at the open mic in front of everyone else?"

"It was on a voluntary basis."

"Okay, but I thought everyone has to do it."

"So I signed up for it. I thought, okay, I'm gonna sing a Hungarian folk song. Because I have a thing, I don't know why, but when I'm on sea ice, I like to sing Hungarian folk songs. And also because like nobody can hear you, so you can sing really, really loud, especially if there is a wind, like no, you can scream, and nobody hears, and it feels so nice. So I'm like, okay, are we singing Hungarian folk songs? But then it turned out like, no, it was just some people on a volunteer basis signed up. So I'm like, okay, now I cannot step back, so I have to sing for I don't know, 60 people."

"But it was, did you sing the folk song?"

"I did, yeah."

"What did they think? Did they give you a big round of applause?"

"They did, of course."

On this expedition, there was a lot to do besides group sing-alongs. More than 60 people worked around the clock to find the wreck of the Endurance. When the ship sank in 1915, Shackleton's crew logged its coordinates, so the search team had a good place to start. They marked off an area called the search box, and they used remote-control submarines called autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs. The AUVs had lights and cameras, and they sent back images of the dark ocean depths to a control room on the ship.

"I'm imagining if there's these AUVs that are searching underwater, right? A lot of the action is happening down there where you can't actually see. So as a photographer, what's your strategy to capture what's going on?"

"So my responsibility was to photograph everything that was happening on the ship, like or everything, like technical and how people were working."

"What were you able to capture on the ship? Like, what was happening, you know, that you were able to see through your lens?"

"So I photographed all the operation, which was 24 hours. Once we arrived to the Weddell Sea, once we arrived to the search box, 24 hours of operation started. That means every single team, everyone were 24 hours, and me being a team only with myself, of course, that I slept very little because other teams could work like they were 12 hours on, 12 hours off. But for me being alone, I was like, okay, 20 hours on, four hours off. But I photographed like everything that was happening on the west from the search operation, but I was also very interested in data for the life on board and what it means to be on the ship for six, seven weeks."

"What do you do coming up?"

As Esther photographs a slice of life aboard the expedition, the search team closes in on Endurance. As the search team zeroed in on Endurance, Esther documented life aboard the research vessel. When the crew members weren't working, there was time to kill. Esther photographed a crew member from South Africa who was training to become a traditional spirit healer.

On one day, after more than a month of searching for Endurance, Esther shadowed a crew member named Dean. Dean was an able seaman, and in his off hours, he served as the ship's de facto barber. "I asked him if I could photograph him while he's, uh, with his next, uh, his next customer, so to say, and yes, he let me do that. I was there, um, with him and with another able seaman for this hair-cutting session."

"And while I'm there, I could hear in my radio whatever the two heads of operation—one name was Nico, the other name was JC—and while I'm there at this hair-cutting ceremony, I could hear in the radio that, uh, somebody from the operation room, from where the AUV was operated, called in the radio that JC, JC, please come to the operator's room. Two seconds later, Nico, Nico, please come to the operation room. I'm like, something is going on."

So I was rushing to the operating room, and it was outside; it was on the deck; it was a tiny little container. When I arrived there, one person who was sitting in the operating room and the door was open, he looked at me, and it was just, uh, how you call it? How can you do this? Nothing—nothing with his head, a yes—and looking at me with a smile from ear to ear. And in that moment, I'm like, no, oh my God! And you knew, from this face expression looking at me and nothing with my head, I knew we found the Endurance.

And then I stepped in, and I saw the Endurance on the screens, and it was absolutely visible that it's a ship; it was absolutely visible that this is Endurance. And standing there, like I got goosebumps in a way that's—and I was standing there like, and I also felt like I can start to cry. I'm like, okay, but don't cry—like, collect yourself. It was, um, and I think I was one of the maybe the first ten people who saw it.

You would think you might think that a ship underwater for more than 100 years would be in rough shape by the time you found it. What was it like? Like, what, you know, what could you actually see? What could you make out from the ship?

"It was incredible because it was thought that the ship will be found like kind of opened in a way, like it's, that it opens up on the side, like in more than one piece, like it broke apart. That was the thought, that that's how we're gonna see that it must be completely open, completely broken. And it was, I think the biggest surprise, seeing the ship in such a good shape that everything—like it was a complete, it's, um, the upper part, the upper, um, deck is broken; it's gone also because they use, uh, wood material from it. But the entire ship is in one beautiful piece, and, um, so it did not break as it landed on the belly. And also, dictionary, because the water is very cold, and there are—less, so the temp because of the temperature of the water and also because the amount of nutrients in the water, the amount of, um, species in the water living there; the ship is still in a beautiful shape, and it is preserved in those waters, and it will be also preserved for a long time. It actually—the ship looks like that it sank yesterday."

"Wow, you're the only photographer chosen for this trip, and you know how many people are paying attention to this and how many people around the world are going to be, as soon as the notification comes to their phone, they're going to click it, and they're going to see your pictures. Were you thinking about that in the moment and like how to capture that?"

"I did not think about that at all. It was very interesting that we were in such a bubble, and in this bubble we had our daily life, we had our—our thing and celebration like after we found—but the rest of the world seemed to be so far away. So when the news went out, I had no idea how many people saw this, or I had no idea that, uh, in how many channels it picked up this story because I was just doing my thing. I was taking, like doing my photography. I was there with 109 people, and for me, the reality and the word was these 109 people, my photography, the ship, and that's it; and the only—the bubble in the Antarctic."

"I saw that after the trip you visited Shackleton's grave on, I think, South Georgia Island, one of the islands, um, in the Southern Ocean. Why was that important to do, and what was it like?"

"It was such, um, a gift that, uh, such a beautiful ending to the trip. Like coming—is that closing the circle? Like coming, finding his boat and done? Before returning to Cape Town, making this little U-turn to South Georgia Island. And as a tribute to him, as a thank you to him, as an appreciation to him, we printed out the pictures of Endurance, and we took it to the grave."

"Wow, and that moment, um, and the expedition leaders gave a speech, and those speeches all were also so emotional. Being there and delivering the pictures of Shackleton to his grave, it was something very special. And the index tradition that way just made the whole thing very round."

"It sounds really moving."

"It was very moving. I was looking at your Instagram, and I saw this post after the trip where you wrote, ‘I feel that we all learned something and were enriched during the expedition that will carry with us for a long time. We learned something about life, about ourselves and others,’ and I was just wondering if you can explain that. Like, what did you learn about life on this expedition?"

"On a trip like this for six, seven weeks, far away from civilization in a confined place, uh, far away from everything, it's also a moment when you can turn inside to look at your own life, to reflect on yourself, see a mirror maybe in front of you, and also learn about yourself, how you react in certain situations, learning from other people. Because in civilization, in our life, we have so many, uh, impulses during the day—so many people that you don't even have the space and time to reflect on things. But on an expedition like that, I always think that an expedition like this, for me, is a spiritual healing journey, like if I would go to India to an ashram for three weeks or for a month, I will have the same result being on an expedition because of that fact that it is so far. You are in a bubble for a long period of time, and only this bubble exists. And then you suddenly see things about yourself, about your life, maybe about your life at home because you are far away. And everyone learns things in a different way on a journey like this; it was the same for me very strongly throughout the journey."

Esther kept writing her log, Shackleton's Very Last Journal. In a great cosmic coincidence, the search team discovered Shackleton's ship a hundred years to the day after his burial. I asked Esther to read one more entry from the journal.

"So, if this is after the discovery: 2022, March 5th, Saturday. The signs have led you to the great discovery of finding her, not just her pieces. What an excitement for all of you, for all of us, for the whole world! What a story that we have be told from generation to come. I was not made to achieve great success and reach the finish line. I was created to tell the story of a brave and to show that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, if you trust in it and if you believe in it without any hesitation, without any doubt. I'm grateful for everyone whose desperation led to this achievement, an accomplishment that I can now feel is mine as well, an accomplishment that I struggled to acquire and that I was never—and that it was never a part of me. Now I take this with me and free myself from all the energies, thoughts, and connections that have kept me here for a long time. Maybe we will meet again, but in another form, in another world, in another galaxy. It was me, Shackleton."

"What if you like to write that one you just read after the discovery? It's that really the feeling that he is now free, that his story ended, that he can return where he wanted to go, and you need answers for questions if it's a question is still open. There is a certain energy, and that bothers you, and you want to get an answer if it stays within you. And that was a feeling of that, that the question is answered now; the ship is at a known grave and at a known place, and now it's there is a peace with it. There is a calm with it, and the story is over. And the story is over officially."

Esther Horvath is a contributor to National Geographic. She's a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers, and you can find her on Instagram at Esther Horvath.

"If you like what you hear and you want to support more content like this, please rate and review us in your podcast app and consider a National Geographic subscription. That is the best way to support Overheard. Go to natgeo.com/explore more to subscribe. There's a link to subscribe in our show notes, and you can also read the inside story of the discovery of Endurance, hear from the archaeologists who found it, and see Esther's photos from the farthest regions of the Southern Ocean. Plus, we've got other stories that you will love. You can see rare photos from the expedition of Robert Falcon Scott; he was one of the first explorers to reach the South Pole in 1912. And if you're interested in shipwrecks, you may have this romantic idea of sunken treasure. Yeah, it turns out Finders Keepers does not apply. Find out how technology is revealing lost ships and why preservationists are begging treasure hunters to leave shipwrecks alone. That's all in the show notes right there on your podcast app."

This week's Overheard episode was produced by me, Jacob Penter. Our producers are Kyrie Douglas and Alana Strauss. Our senior producers include Brian Gutierrez. Our senior editor is Eli Chen. Our manager of audio is Carla Wills. Our executive producer of audio is Davar Ardalon, who edited this episode. Hans Dale Su sound designed this episode and composed our theme music. This podcast is a production of National Geographic Partners. Michael Tribble is the vice president of integrated storytelling. Nathan Lump is National Geographic's editor-in-chief, and I'm senior producer Jacob Penter. Thanks for listening; we'll see you next time.

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