He was off to view some penguins a mile away when he heard about the most celebrated wreck in Mensun Bound.
The day was March 5. Mr. Bound was traveling with the Endurance22 expedition, which was looking for the remains of Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance.
The wooden ship, which was crushed in the pack ice of the Weddell and sank in 1915 during the ill-fated attempt by Sir Ernest Shackleton, had been searched for for two weeks by technicians.
There was only four days left before the icebreaker had to return to Cape Town, and there was no sign of Endurance below the ice. Mr. Bound, the exploration director who had previously described the wreck as the most impossible wreck in history, and John Shears, the expedition leader, needed to get to it.
Mr. Bound told Reach the World that they had been talking about how to get off the ship.
They went to the pack ice at 4 p.m. There were penguins nearby to keep them company and the views were stunning.
When they got back to the ship, they were summoned to the bridge, where they met NicolasVincent, who was in charge of the underwater elements of the expedition. Mr. Bound said that he held up his phone so they could see a photograph on it.
Mr. Bound said it was the first beautiful picture of it.
While he and Mr. Shears were off the ship, the drone sent back some intriguing images. On closer inspection, it was obvious that these were of a ship, lying upright on the floor. It could be something else.
Mr.Vincent had a picture on his phone that was the first of the ship since the famous photographs taken by Frank Hurley.
A few photographs and a short video were released four days after the discovery. The name of the ship, which led to one of the greatest tales of leadership and survival in exploration history, with Shackleton and his 27 men all reaching safety, was still visible on the stern, glass still intact in the portholes, caulking still visible between the planks of wood.
Mr. Bound said that the remains of the ship were the finest wooden wreck he had ever seen.
The expedition, financed by more than $10 million from an anonymous donor, left South Africa on February 2nd. It arrived at the search site on February 16th, based on the last known position of Endurance, which was determined by Frank Worsley.
The previous expedition had ended in failure when technicians lost contact with the underwater drone.
The expedition had two newer drones, a primary and a backup, that were 13 feet long and 5 feet wide, and had thrusters that enabled them to move in all directions.
These drones were programmed in advance with coordinates and a search pattern, like those on the previous expedition. The equipment was tethered to the ship by a thin, miles-long fiber optic cable that could be unwound as the drone traveled. The cable could be used to send new instructions to the drone to change its course if necessary.
According to an interview with Chad Bonin, who supervised the operation of the drones, by March 5, the primary drones would have flown to Elephant Island, where Shackleton and his crew first sailed to safety after the sinking of Endurance.
Mr. Bonin said that there had been some early problems. The cable broke during a dive. The cold water and high pressure caused problems with one of the thrusters. There were issues with the winch that was used to lift the drone into the water.
Mr. Bonin told Reach the World that it was great after that. Each dive took between four and eight hours to complete.
A mile-wide swath of the seafloor was scanned by the drone on either side. Mr. Bonin and others looked at computer screens in a cramped operations center in the ship's hold.
He said that anything out of the ordinary would pop up as a red flag.
The team saw some interesting things over the course of two weeks, but all of the images turned out to be natural features or not being Endurance.
Mr. Bonin was still optimistic as the deadline approached.
He said that every day he would walk on deck and say, "Today is the day."
He was excited but cautious when he first saw it. We found it. It didn't take long to be persuaded.
The drones returned to the ship and the technicians swapped out the equipment for a high-resolution camera and a laser-surveying device to make detailed scans of the site.
Mr. Bound expected the wreck to be well preserved because of the cold water and lack of parasites that eat wood.
The clarity of the water combined with the drone's camera revealed remarkable details. A man's boot was seen in one spot. The images clearly showed where some of the ship's timbers had been sawed off. The camera was able to see into some cabins.
The images and scans will be used for educational purposes.
Mr. Bound said, "We came, we saw, we measured in detail." The wreck is protected by the 60-year-old Treaty of the Antarctic.
The expedition team and the ship's crew celebrated with a party on the ice, setting up a large tent with food, drink and music.
It is expected that the icebreaker will arrive in Cape Town in about a week.
The ship stopped at a former whaling station on the island of South Georgia. In May 1916, after a 16-day, 800-mile journey across the Southern Ocean in an open lifeboat, Shackleton and his crew reached the island.
After arranging the rescue of the remaining crew from Elephant Island, Shackleton returned to Britain to a hero's welcome. He died of a heart attack at the age of 47 after organizing another expedition to the South Pole.
He is buried there, and the expedition team left new images of his ship on his grave.
A scientist from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany was on the ship studying how the ice in the Weddell Sea may be changing as the world warms.
We went to South Georgia to visit Sir Ernest Shackleton's grave.
An emotional end to a long story.
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