Shackleton's way

Sir Ernest Shackleton was the last hero of the 'Heroic age' of Antarctic exploration
He is most known for his great escape from death in the Antarctic ice - when his ship got stuck and then got crushed in the Antarctic winter ice, he managed to shepherd his crew to safety across the most daunting odds
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition was supposed to be the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent
But they never even reached Antarctica! Their ship 'Endurance' got stuck in ice - and did not actually 'endure'. It got crushed like an egg - and sank! the entire expedition managed to make to a deserted island called 'Elephant island' - but it was clear that they could not stay here - they would starve to death. So Shackleton and a few crew members made a most difficult and hazardous open sea journey to South Georgia in a little open boat to get help. And they did it - and managed to save the entire crew. 
They walked and made some makeshift lifeboats to reach the inhospitable and uninhabited Elephant Island by mid April 1916! 
Staying there was no solution - they would have frozen to death, or died of starvation and disease.  They had to get word to the world and get a ship to pick them up. So Shackleton and five others then made an 800-mile (1,300 km) open-boat journey in a little makeshift lifeboat to reach South Georgia.
1300 kilometers!  That’s longer than the Drake passage! And in a tiny open dinghy! In the open Antarctic seas! That’s just crazy!
(No elephants there, unfortunately! It was called Elephant island because it has a long peninsula jutting out and looks like an elephant’s head (with trunk) when seen on a map. )
Therefore, we were quite excited about seeing Elephant island!
We were actually sailing in Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ path - from Antarctica to Elephant island to South Georgia to the Falkland islands! But obviously we were doing it in great comfort in a fancy luxury ship, while Shackleton and his team had a much worse time of it.
So we were all looking forward to landing on Elephant island …
… but you are ahead of me!
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The Elephant island landing was cancelled - we just saw it as we sailed past it!
Christmas day itself was pretty boring after the action packed Christmas Eve . There was no expedition at all - only the vacuuming and a lecture on Shackleton.
But we had a pleasant send off from Antarctic waters!
There was a pod of Orcas - Killer Whales - in the waters and we all rushed to the decks to see them and try to take photos. These Orcas were hunting penguins - so all the penguins scrambled up on icebergs to stay safe from them - and we were treated to the sight of hundreds of penguins chilling out on top of ice bergs (or floes).
How do they even get up there?, I wondered. How do they climb up these steep and slippery icebergs? It’s amazing. The height of the ice seemed to be way over the water. How did these ungainly and clumsy birds manage to climb all the way up there? Wow!
Good thing I was not a penguin! The Orcas would have eaten me a long time back.
That was a nice Christmas gift - and a send-off present from Antarctica as well!