1912 (28 page)

The
Deutschland
would go via Buenos Aires and use South Georgia, in the South Atlantic, as a springboard for the Weddell Sea in December 1911. Following the coastline of Coats Land south, Filchner hoped to establish a base as far south as possible, making scientific measurements through the winter. With the onset of summer, four men would then push on to the South Geographic Pole, sledging with dogs, the much-vaunted Manchurian horses and motorised sledges—though the last ended up being dropped.

Meanwhile, having delivered the men in Antarctica, the
Deutschland
would return north, making oceanographic measurements as it went, supported by the latest wireless telegraphy, which would allow contact with the outside world. If the worst came to the worst, the ship was stocked with enough supplies to survive a winter trapped in the ice. Not much was being left to chance.

Filchner's thinking on the Weddell Sea was remarkably clear. He had heard reports that conditions in the region were favourable. Large numbers of icebergs had been seen in the north, calved from the Antarctic the previous summer. After consulting Shackleton and others, Filchner decided the stock of ice in the Weddell Sea would not have had time to rebuild and the way should remain relatively clear. If ever there was a time to beat Weddell's record in the south and make landfall, this was it.

Seeing off the
Deutschland
from Bremerhaven in May 1911, Filchner was left to finish the expedition paperwork and set out later in a fast boat to Buenos Aires. It was a disastrous mistake. Although the
Deutschland
collected a wealth of oceanographic data as it travelled south, Vahsel argued with the scientific director for almost the entire journey. Things were so bad that Filchner received a telegram while travelling to Argentina: the expedition captain was resigning his post. Filchner must have been mightily relieved, given Vahsel's disturbing behaviour.

Filchner met a promising naval officer called Albert Kling aboard his passage ship and, not one to miss an opportunity, offered him Vahsel's post. But by the time Filchner reached Buenos Aires, in September, Vahsel had changed his mind and the scientific director had walked instead. Frustrated, Filchner was forced to accept the situation; but Kling stayed, keen to continue with the expedition, albeit not in charge of the vessel.

Reaching Buenos Aires the
Deutschland
met the
Fram
, recently returned from Antarctica having dropped Amundsen and his team off at the Bay of Whales. The Norwegians were about to start a survey across the Atlantic, to Africa and back. The teams apparently got on well, and the
Fram
saw the Germans off with three cheers. If Amundsen and Scott failed to reach the Pole, Filchner was ready to make his bid; in the meantime, the scientific work would continue. Filchner had prepared meticulously—but it remained to be seen whether things would go to plan.

German interest in the Antarctic had blossomed in 1882, during one of the first global scientific endeavours: the International Polar Year. Affectionately shortened to IPY, this global effort was designed to focus research on the polar regions during a single year and share the resulting data. Its revolutionary idea
was the pursuit of scientific knowledge through international co-operation and not geographic conquest, which had been the norm up to that point. Unlike the Magnetic Crusade, which focused on magnetic observations around the world, the IPY was limited mainly to high latitudes and looked at the gamut of scientific interests. Two expeditions went south, one of which was a German team that based itself in South Georgia and undertook the infamous corseting of penguins, tethering them for research.

These early efforts also looked at the make-up of the oceans. But the teams involved were hampered by instrument failure, as the equipment was rarely up to scratch. First attempts involved dropping thermometers over the side, unprotected, to obtain maximum and minimum temperatures. Unfortunately, the changing salt levels and higher pressures experienced in deep water skewed the results. At two thousand metres below, for instance, the pressure is two hundred times greater than that at the surface, distorting any measurement made by an unprotected instrument. Different designs were tested, with varying degrees of success, culminating in an effort led by the great Nansen, who with his team designed a deep-ocean thermometer that could withstand the tremendous pressures and preserve the measurements accurately.

By the time of the
Deutschland
expedition it was understood that ocean properties were not the same the world over. The
HMS Challenger
expedition of the 1870s had gleaned that south of 65° the surface water was cold and remarkably low in salt; deeper down below, the opposite was true. In the tropics, however, the same cold, fresher water was just below the surface. By measuring the temperature and saltiness it was possible to map these water masses relatively easily.

In the seas surrounding Antarctica, de Gerlache's
Belgica
party had fleshed out more detail using modern, deep-sea
reversing thermometers and showed the cold surface water extended all the way south and sat over a warmer layer below, which was in turn underlain by yet more cold water towards the bottom. It suggested the oceans were made up of different masses of water that originated in different parts of the world and were modified as they moved around the planet. But how this happened was still a mystery.

On the way to Buenos Aires, along with recording the ocean-water temperature and how much salt it contained, the
Deutschland
team was interested in other characteristics, especially how biologically active the ocean was. Even before the ship had reached South America, the tropical cold-ocean mass that the
Challenger
had suggested originated from Antarctica had been shown to have unusually high amounts of nitrate. Nitrate is a crucial nutrient, sustaining small, single-celled organisms known as phytoplankton. In the past we called these plants, but things get hazy when you are dealing with single cells; today the problem is bypassed by describing them as protists. These particular protists photosynthesise carbon dioxide dissolved in ocean water and are the food of choice for krill, a small shrimp-like crustacean found in Antarctic waters. In the summertime melting ice and constant daylight fuel massive plankton blooms, which support huge krill populations—and with them most of the Southern Ocean food chain. The
Deutschland
measurements implied the Antarctic waters were some of the most productive in the world. And yet, somehow, the nutrient levels of the Southern Ocean were being replenished.

Leaving Buenos Aires the
Deutschland
pushed on through some of the planet's most feared seas, towards the 170-kilometre-long island of South Georgia, which lies in a vast belt of waves and
wind that encircles the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere. The region has acquired all sorts of dramatic names—the ‘screaming sixties', the ‘furious fifties', the ‘roaring forties'—because of the temperature difference of several degrees over a relatively narrow band of latitude. Combined with the spin of the Earth and the vast expanse of ocean, this means the wind almost always blows from the west, and with prodigious force.

South Georgia sits in a perfect position to be hit sideways by this continuous blast. Because the island is immediately downwind of a relatively small gap between South America and Antarctica known as the Drake Passage, the circulating ocean waters can combine with the wind to create extraordinarily rough seas. It is also something of a gateway to Antarctica. On 20 January 1775, as part of his second expedition, Captain Cook fought through these same South Atlantic waters in
HMS Resolution
to explore the southwest coast of South Georgia, hoping it would continue south and prove to be part of the hitherto undiscovered
Terra Australis Incognita
. The
Resolution
rounded a headland at the southern end and Cook, to his dismay, saw land heading northeast. South Georgia was an island and not the tip of a great continent: it was another false dawn. The British captain would have to continue polewards.

Cape Disappointment was preserved forever on the world's maps, a testament to Cook's frustration. He later wrote of South Georgia that it was ‘doomed by Nature to perpetual frigidness… whose horrible and savage aspect I have not words to describe'. But, after his remarks on the rich abundance of its wildlife, especially the seal colonies, South Georgia became a significant location in the Southern Ocean.

Reaching South Georgia today is fraught with difficulty. There is no airfield, and visiting cruise ships, while frequent in the summer months, are not a cheap way to travel. For scientists, the principal way of reaching the island is by a Fishery
Protection Vessel operated by the South Georgian government. Known as the
Pharos
, this distinctive red ship ploughs the waves between the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and beyond. Day in, day out, it searches for poachers of the famed delicacy the Chilean toothfish. To survive, like many other Antarctic fish, the toothfish have glycoproteins in their body fluid that effectively act as an anti-freeze, allowing them to rove in waters as cold as -2°C. Adaptations like this allow the Southern Ocean to support vast—but rapidly depleting—fishing populations.

You are guaranteed a rocky journey on the
Pharos
; save for the almost constant company of albatrosses, there is nothing to see beyond the succession of rolling waves and the inside of a toilet bowl. Travelling there is one of the closest experiences you can get to the expeditions of 1912, even though it is only four days' journey each way. In 1912 the men had weeks of this, and in far more vulnerable vessels. But reaching South Georgia is worth it. It is like travelling to the fabled land of Prester John, the mythical kingdom in the Southern Ocean, a place rather like the Scottish Highlands but with glaciers. If you are fortunate enough to arrive with a break in the clouds, you are greeted with a vista of mountains and ice, shrieking flocks of sea birds, pods of dolphins and, in among the floating mats of seaweed, harems of seals.

Wildlife is so abundant here because South Georgia sits just south of a prominent boundary between very different masses of ocean water known as the Antarctic Convergence, or the Polar Front. Critically, there are two different forms of ocean circulation in Antarctic waters. The best known is the drift in the surface waters from the west, driven by the pervasive westerly winds; but there is another, deeper type that travels south–north, suggestions of which were first made by the men of the
Challenger
and
Belgica
.

To understand the latter we have to look south, at what is taking place around Antarctica when sea ice is formed out of the
freezing surface waters. Because the newly formed ice contains little salt, the water left behind becomes heavier, sinking to the sea floor and flowing north, taking with it dissolved gases and the decaying remains of ocean-dwelling plants and animals. The sea ice left behind is blown north and, as it melts, forms a cold, fresh ocean mass. By the time this Antarctic Surface Water reaches South Georgia it meets a considerably warmer body of water heading in the opposite direction and is forced to sink before it can carry on to the tropics. More importantly for South Georgia, a warmer ocean mass is drawn south to replace the surface and deep cold waters heading north, bringing the nutrients to the surface that are essential in supporting the island's remarkable wildlife.

Today South Georgia is teeming with fur and elephant seals—most lying among the shoreline tussock, including surrounding the research station at King Edward Point, next to the old whaling station of Grytviken. After Cook's reports reached home sealers poured in to the subantarctic, lured by the rich pickings. Fur-seal skin was particularly prized for hats, while elephant seals were hunted for their blubber. The damage was colossal: populations plummeted and in turn new hunting grounds were pursued. In 1821 the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen was staggered to find eighteen American and British sealing ships lying at anchor at Deception Island, a small piece of rock off the Antarctic Andes that had only been discovered the previous year.