Epic Sail

By The Editors
October 3, 2012 9:00 am
Epic Sail
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There are some adventures so daring they truly test a man’s courage and fortitude: Navigating Bolivia’s Yungas Road. Summiting K2. Daughters.

To these, we present the most death-defying adventure of them all: recreating Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, via the Shackleton Epic, taking brave souls right now.

Led by a world record-holding Aussie adventurer, the Epic’s inviting 10 amateur explorers to reenact Shackleton’s valiant, 800-mile, 1914-1917 trek during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Stress on reenact: you’ll be on a near-replica ship of the support vessel used during the original expedition, with some added safety features (modern communications, air conditioning, etc.).

“This is NOT a cruise,” the Epic’s organizers stress. You’ll be part of the crew, sailing and navigating, monitoring environmental conditions, and getting schooled on the surrounding geography, wildlife, and history.

While learning the ways of the sea, you’ll also visit abandoned whaling stations in Drake Passage and have access to luxuries unavailable on the original Antarctic quest (though not cocaine, which was apparently the must-pack item of every Antarctic explorer worth his snow shoes).

Your epic will include hot meals, real beds, and an on-board saloon, stocked with bottles of whiskey recreated from a case found buried in the ice during a 1907 South Pole expedition.

At least it’ll keep you warm.

Not interested in trekking across a hellscape of ice? Then just subscribe to Shackleton’s newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and twitter.

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