GUVERNØREN Shipwreck at Enterprise Island

There are many, many shipwrecks in Antarctica. A lot of wrecks come from the sealing and whaling time, which saw quite a profitable time during WWI. This is due to whale oil being a great source of glycerin, which is what they used to create dynamite/bombs - you might see why it was highly sort after during World War 1.

The GUVERNØREN was shipwrecked back in 1915 on January 27th after she caught on fire during a crew party, where the story goes that someone bumped a burning lantern off a table. A more comprehensive story is that the crew were celebrating a successful 1914-15 whaling season on the Antarctic peninsula with 5050 m3 of whale oil stored in her hull. Once she did catch fire all attempts to put the fire out failed, which included them firing explosive harpoons into the hull to partially sink her so that the ocean would put the fire out in order to save the cargo. However, all the cargo was lost BUT none of the 83 crew lost their lives, which is quite remarkable considering the remote area.

Today you can see the ship is partially exposed and quite a sight to see and provides another colour rather than natural landscape colours of blue, white and black. Also, Antarctic terns use this man made structure as a nesting ground, which is a beautiful small tern.