Mensun Bound served as director of exploration on the Endurance 22 expedition, which located Shackleton's famed ship in the Weddell Sea in 2022.
JULIEN TRINCALI
From sailing working ships at just nine years old to spending four decades excavating shipwrecks, it’s no wonder Mensun Bound is known as the Indiana Jones of the Deep. In 2012, Bound turned a keen eye to Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance. Lying more than 3,000 metres below the surface of the ice-filled Weddell Sea, Endurance was called “the world’s most unreachable shipwreck.” Yet in 2022, an international team led by Bound achieved the impossible and located the wreck. Here, Bound discusses the discovery, Shackleton’s legacy and the future of Endurance.
On the start of the search In August 2012, I’d just been asked if I could find Terra Nova. One day, I was leafing through that day’s newspapers, and on page seven of the Daily Telegraph, there was an article with the headline “Terra Nova Found.” I just could not believe it. I was devastated. I showed my friend the article. He scratched his head and went, “Well, what about Endurance?” I tried to talk him out of it; he just ignored me.