They sailed for sixteen days - the worst, most torturous sixteen days in the entire trip. They first encountered pack ice, but they soon found a way through, finding open water. Every day they were soaked, and too seasick to eat much of anything. There were gales for ten out of the sixteen days.They got next to no sleep, because it got to be so cold that the spray that came up onto the ship froze solid. One day, a terrible stench led the men to find out that their deerskin sleeping bags were rotting. They had to throw the worst two over the side of the ship. They were constantly bailing out water, but it hardly made a difference. It was dark from six at night to seven in the morning, and they had almost no light. Their navigation books were almost ruined, and the maps were almost impossible to read. One day, they awoke to find that every soaking rope, canvas, and piece of wood on that ship had frozen solid, and the ice was working as a deadweight, dragging the ship down into the water. They worked ceaselessly for hours, chipping the ice off. Shackleton once thought he saw a clear sky ahead, but it turned out to be a gigantic wave. Finally, after going through days and days of torture, they spotted land. South Georgia.
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