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The northeasterly gale that had been blowing intermittently since January 16 rose again in the course of the night. The day broke dull and snowy, revealing the pack pressed around the ship more densely than before. Still, the temperature was mild, 28° Fahrenheit, so as Lees noted “there is no fear, at present, our getting frozen in.” With nowhere to go, there was not much to do. The day's excitement came when Frank Wild shot a nine-foot crabeater seal, providing fresh meat for the men and dogs and Mrs. Chippy. The scientists held a singsong in Clark's cabin, a favorite gathering place as it was close to the boilers. Hurley continued writing letters to be taken with the ship when she returned to South Georgia Island, and Lees busied himself with washing and mending his wardrobe.

The gale was still blowing from the northeast on January 21, drifting snow from the continental ice shelf; consequently the air was full of moisture, and the wardroom and cabins became damp with condensation. Ice pressure against the rudder caused grave concern, and the crew went over the side to chip it clear. Although it represented a costly expenditure of fuel, Shackleton kept steam up in the boilers so that the ship could take advantage of the least opening in the pack. Held fast in the ice, the Endurance was being carried with the rest of the pack by the Weddell Sea's current; soon she would be moving away from land.

After six days of blowing on and off, the northeasterly gale subsided on January 22, and the following day dawned sunny and calm. Hurley immediately took advantage of the light to take some color photographs, and Lees continued his scrubbing and darning. An assessment of the ship's supply of fuel determined that only 75 tons of coal remained of the 160 the Endurance had carried from South Georgia.

Endurance in ice in full sail

Worsley called this photo “The Endurance in the Pride of Her Youth.”

At midnight on January 24, a rent in the surrounding ice opened a lead at right angles to the ship—but 100 yards distant. Full steam and sail were raised, but the Endurance could not ram through, and the ship's company took to the ice with chisels and crowbars to try to hack a path to the tantalizing lane to freedom. Although the ice could be seen breaking up some distance ahead, around the ship herself they could do nothing.

“Held up in the ice. Nothing of any movement takes place”; “still fast & no signs of any opening”; “the lead that promised so much has almost closed up again”; “still fast”— thus, in this anticlimactic way, do the diary entries over the next few days indicate the men's dawning awareness that the decision to lay to in the pack—made, it seems in retrospect, almost casually on the night of January 18—had proved fatal to their plans.

“It appears as though we have stuck fast for this season,” Hurley wrote at the close of January 27. “A noticeable drop in the temperature at midnight, +9 being recorded. This has had the effect of freezing up many of the small pools & cementing together the floes, an ominous happening.”

Playing football on the ice

A popular diversion while the ship was held up. Macklin and Clark, both Scots, were recognized as the most outstanding players. The teams were Port watch versus Starboard watch.

A weekly gramophone evening in the Ritz, Sunday evening

Some of the sailors developed the superstition that the gramophone incited the bouts of pressure.

Daily depth soundings indicated that the ship was drifting farther and farther away from land. With the regular routine winding down and less work for everyone to do, boredom inevitably set in. Games of football on the ice and attention to the dogs provided some diversion. In the wardroom, the scientists amused one another by reading aloud in the evening, and Sunday singsongs were a regular event. Saturday nights the traditional toast was drunk “to our sweethearts and wives” (followed unfailingly by the chorus, “may they never meet”), a ritual overdone by McNish one night, resulting