The seas were quite high as is usual here. As a matter of fact, the marooned men in l915 knew that no ships would ever call at Elephant Island due to the terrible weather and the absence of beaches. That’s why they were totally dependent on the return of their leader, Shackleton.
This hopeless refuge was quite depressing; no wonder some of the men were half mad while they awaited a ship on the horizon. Waves would occasionally break over the narrow spit so the penguins try to put their nests and the kindergartens as high up on the rocky portions as possible. Shackleton’s men mention in their diaries the conditions of constantly being wet and cold due to the flooding. So they lived in a mixture of seawater, snow, sleet, and hail mixed with mud and penguin guano.
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