The Quest Chronicle blog and its origins
In early 2021, it was suggested that I set up a blog to document the “100-years-ago” story of the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition as an unfolding diary. The blog launched in March 2021 and ran though the year up to January 4 2022, the eve of the centenary of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s death at South Georgia. By this time, I had decided that the story should be presented in a book and so transferred efforts to that cause – resulting in The Quest Chronicle being published in September 2022. This part of our website contains just some of the posts from the original blog.
Blog posts are listed below in reverse chronological order.
Jan Chojecki
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12-19 October, 1921 – Madeira
Wednesday 12 October, 1921 Not long after leaving Lisbon, the knocking of the engines begins again. More bad weather. Almost everyone is suffering from seasickness. Thursday 13 October, 1921 Still rough seas and Quest rolls so much that it is impossible to do much in the way of meteorological balloon work, although some kites are…
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8-11 October, 1921
Saturday 8 October, 1921 J C Bee Mason, in place of Sir Ernest Shackleton, gives a lecture describing the expedition to the Portuguese Boy Scouts Association. In the evening a dinner is given in honour of Sir Ernest Shackleton by The British Club of Lisbon, presided by Sir Lancelot Carnegie. Sunday 9 October, 1921 While…
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1-7 October, 1921
Saturday 1 October, 1921 With a gale getting up, Quest lays up with the engines stopped, but they are soon restarted to better ride the storm. Lysaght writes in his diary: “The seas were now mountainous and the biggest I had ever seen in either large or small vessels. The ship was riding them like…