🇦🇶 Elephant Island, Antarctica — Cruise Port Guide
A black wall of rock and ice on the edge of the Scotia Sea, where 22 of Shackleton's men survived four and a half months under two upturned boats. Landing is rare; most ships simply stand off Point Wild and let the place speak.
Updated September 2026
Quick facts
Getting ashore
When to visit Elephant Island
Ships run here only in the austral summer, roughly November to March. Daytime air sits around -2 to 3°C with wind chill well below that; December and January bring 20 hours of daylight, February and March bring the whales and better ice.
Good to know
The island sits open to the Scotia Sea and swell almost always decides the visit. Expect to see it from the deck rather than set foot on it, and dress for standing outside in wind for an hour.
Things to do in Elephant Island
Stand off Point Wild
The spit is tiny, and seeing how small it is against those cliffs is what makes the story land. Ships nose in as close as the swell allows while the historian narrates on the tannoy.
Look for the Pardo monument
A dark bust on the rocks, honouring the Chilean captain who reached the men. Binoculars help — it is small, and often obscured by penguins and spray.
Zodiac cruise the coast
When the swell drops, drivers run along the cliffs beneath hanging glaciers and through the ice at the foot of the wall. Landings are far rarer than cruises.
Chinstraps at the camp site
The spit is now a chinstrap colony. The men ate penguins from this same ground; the birds have comprehensively won it back.
Read the Endurance story on deck
Most expedition ships schedule a lecture on the crossing before arriving. Reading the account with the actual island in front of you is the reason to be here.
Weather by month
Best time to visit: Nov–Mar; Feb–Mar for whales, Dec–Jan for chicks
| Month | High | Low | Rain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 37° | 30° | 2" |
| Feb | 37° | 30° | 2.1" |
| Mar | 34° | 27° | 2.3" |
| Apr | 29° | 22° | 2.2" |
| May | 24° | 17° | 1.9" |
| Jun | 20° | 13° | 1.7" |
| Jul | 19° | 12° | 1.6" |
| Aug | 20° | 13° | 1.6" |
| Sep | 23° | 16° | 1.7" |
| Oct | 28° | 21° | 1.8" |
| Nov | 32° | 25° | 1.9" |
| Dec | 36° | 29° | 2" |
A little history
After the Endurance was crushed and sank in 1915, Shackleton's crew reached Elephant Island in three small boats in April 1916 — their first solid ground in 497 days.
Shackleton then took five men 800 nautical miles across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia in the James Caird, a 6.9-metre lifeboat, in one of the greatest feats of navigation ever recorded.
The 22 men left behind lived under two upturned boats on a spit barely 100 metres long, eating penguin and seal, for four and a half months. Frank Wild ordered the camp rolled up every morning in case the ship came that day.
Every one of them survived. Shackleton reached them at the fourth attempt, on 30 August 1916, and counted them from the deck before he even landed.
A bust of Luis Pardo, the Chilean pilot of the tug Yelcho that finally made the rescue, stands on the spit today — usually surrounded by chinstrap penguins and washed by spray.