Elephant seals lounge on the beach of Possession Bay, South Georgia. The jagged and mountainous terrain of South Georgia was the only hope of survival for Ernest Shackleton and his crew who were trapped on ice floes for 9 months over 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) away from inhabited land.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Epic of Survival: Shackleton," November 1998, National Geographic magazine)