Elephant Island is one of the South Shetland Islands and administratively belongs to the British Antarctic Territory, The land is claimed by the UK, but the claim is of course fiercely disputed by Argentina and Chile.

Elephant Island is made of bare rock, covered with ice and snow. It has no permanent human settlement, but Brasil has built a couple of refuges here.

 

In 1916 it was a harsh and unforgiving temporarily home to the survivors of the ill-fated Endurance expedition.

It took Ernest Shackleton over four month to sail 1300 km in an open boat and cross a mountain ridge on foot on South Georgia to get help and eventually save his crew. A real hero indeed.

 

In February 2008 we cruised past this barren island. The weather was mostly cloudy and foggy, but every now and then the skies cleared just enough to present us with some nice views.