Neil Oliver: Virtues of Endurance and Endeavour slumber in the deep

I can’t stop thinking about renewed plans to hunt for the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, lost in 1915 to the bottom of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.

The explorer and his 27 crewmates had intended to cross the continent from west to east using dog sleds, but their endeavour was overtaken by events. Before they reached mainland Antarctica, and after months trapped instead in drifting pack ice, their vessel succumbed to irresistible forces and sank into the dark. Shackleton’s subsequent success in leading all his men to safety — an odyssey involving sailing many hundreds of miles across the Southern Ocean in little open boats — is legendary.

Earlier this month came the news of plans to locate, survey and film whatever