Y10-Week17 Notes Beards & Icicles (courtesy straycat)

This is about the Shackleton Expedition to Antarctic. A big sprawling saga and this is a big sprawling mess in trying to describe it!
Some of the timeline details I have to double check, but all other details are true:

Where: In the open Southern Ocean, aboard the James Caird, a modified lifeboat.
Wood with a canvas top, it's shallow and 22' long. It's been made deeper with planks cannibalized from their destroyed mother ship, the Endurance. The new seams made water tight with a combination of artist's oil paints and seal's blood.

5 men on an 800 mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia. A speck in the Southern Ocean, days over the horizon. No record of any vessel having successfully made the trip. It's the island they initially set off from X months ago.
Their Captain, 'The Boss' is Earnest Shackleton, a 2 time Antarctic failure. Virtually from the start, nothing has gone right on this 3rd venture and all his effort has gone into saving the life of each of his crew. So far, 'victorious'.

They are 5 days into their desperate race. Fierce weather and waves. 2 days without a visible sun for navigation. They have no idea if they've stayed or strayed the course.
They take turns at the helm, crawling into the squalid, 4' high space 'below deck' for rest. One man sings incessantly when at the helm, but no one can ever figure out what the song is.
The salt spray dries their mouths and heightens their thirst. They chew on leather to maintain saliva.

Why and When: 18 months since the grand send off from Britain, 16 months since launching their Antarctic exploration, 15 months since their ship, The Endurance, became locked in pack ice, 8 months since the Endurance was crushed by floes in the spring thaw and they abandoned ship, wintering on an ice floe, 5 days since they set out into in the open sea leaving behind the other 24 crew members on Elephant Island.

Next: After another 7 days, they're successful in their attempt to reach South Georgia (albeit the 'wrong' side; the whaling station they hope will provide assistance is on the other side and they have to climb over a glacier ridge to reach it). An albatross has accompanied them the last few days. They knock at the home of the harbourmaster who had seen them off X months before. He asks, 'Who are you?' The pack ice that's trapped the whaling station mysteriously retreats and with the help of a proper vessel, they return to Elephant Island and rescue each and every member of the crew. They then return to the UK for a momentary hero's welcome. In short order, WW1 overshadows the remarkable adventure and almost a generation passes before the thread is picked up again.

I doubt think this is going anywhere with my lyrical skills, but I thought I'd post it up for the purposes of discussion. Having rewatched a wonderful PBS documentary on the whole misadventure, I have a number of evocative descriptions from crew members that could do a bunch of the work for me. One is, 'the Endurance was frozen like an almond in a chocolate bar' .

Any and all feedback welcome. Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings!

One question: I chose this moment in the narrative because it seemed to lend itself to flash backs and forwards. But it seems sort of inert. Is there another moment in the timeline you feel might be a better jumping off point?

Or maybe the main problem is I feel like I have to tell the whole story and it's just making for a diffuse, er, mess?

Thanks in advance!

Edit Weds: Minor augmentations to main description.