Supplies were now running low. Hurley and Macklin were sent back to Ocean Camp to recover food that had been left there to lighten the sledging teams’ burden. On 2 February 1916 Shackleton sent a larger party back, to recover the third lifeboat.[69] Food shortages became acute as the weeks passed, and seal meat, which had added variety to their diet, now became a staple as Shackleton attempted to conserve the remaining packaged rations. In January, all but two teams of the dogs (whose overall numbers had been depleted by mishaps and illness in the preceding months) were shot on Shackleton’s orders, because the dogs' requirements for seal meat were excessive.[69] The final two teams were shot on 2 April, by which time their meat was a welcome addition to the rations.[70] Meanwhile, the rate of drift became erratic; after being held at around 67° for several weeks, at the end of January there was a series of rapid north-eastward movements which, by 17 March, brought Patience Camp to the latitude of Paulet Island, but 60 miles (97 km) to its east. "It might have been six hundred for all the chance we had of reaching it across the broken sea-ice", Shackleton recorded.[71]
The party now had land more or less continuously in sight. The peak of Mount Haddington on James Ross Island remained in view as the party drifted slowly by.[72] They were now too far north for Snow Hill or Paulet Island to be accessible; Shackleton wrote that all hopes were fixed on two remaining small islands at the northern extremity of Graham Land. These were Clarence Island and Elephant Island, around 100 miles (160 km) due north of their position on 25 March.[71] He then had further thoughts and decided that Deception Island might be a better target destination. This lay far to the west, towards the end of a chain which formed the South Shetland Islands, but Shackleton thought it might be attainable by island-hopping. Its advantage was that it was sometimes visited by whalers and might contain provisions.[73] All of these destinations would require a perilous journey in the lifeboats, once the floe upon which they were drifting finally broke up. Earlier, the lifeboats had been named after the expedition’s three chief financial sponsors: James Caird, Dudley Docker and Stancomb Wills.[74
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