or you could be Ernest Shackleton sailing in an open boat with a couple of boxes of matches to heat your bouillon cubes, through Antarctic pack ice from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, which is 800 miles. I just can't get my head around it. (and when they land they have to do a 36-hour non-stop trek over uncharted glacier to get to civilization). Middle Earth is made up, but people REALLY DO these crazy things when they have to. It's not impossible.