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Near Misses
Antarctic Exploration
C
aptain Cook sailed
around Antarctica but
never saw the mainland.
He made many other
discoveries including
South Georgia. In 1779
he was killed in Hawaii
returning from a voyage
to the Arctic.
I
n January 1773 Cook’s
ships (below) were the
first to cross the
Antarctic Circle. They
weathered furious and
dangerous Antarctic
storms and sailed
seas full of ice during
their voyage.
A
century and a half after Drake, two French explorers
sailing separately, Jean-Baptiste Bouvet and Yves-Joseph
de Kerguelen, each thought they saw Antarctica. Most
people were only interested in trade and took little notice of
their discoveries. Map makers still drew
Terra Australis
Incognita
covering most of the Southern Ocean.
A Scientific Sailor
James Cook was born in Yorkshire in 1728. He went to sea
when he was 18 years old and worked on ships transporting
coal. Cook was very clever and an excellent seaman. He
was also a good scientist. Cook later joined the British Navy,
which sent him on several expeditions. On one he charted
New Zealand and Australia’s east coast.
Cook left England on July 13, 1772, with two ships,
Resolution
and
Adventure
, bound for Antarctica. He took
27 tons of biscuits and thousands of pieces of salted
pork. Even so his crew ate meat on only four days a week.
Cook was told to sail “as near to the South Pole as
possible.” He was also told to claim any land he discovered
in the name of the King of England. During the next three
years Cook sailed more than 60,000 miles and went around
the continent of Antarctica.
Furthest South
Cook sailed as far south as he could, often along the edge of
the
pack ice
surrounding Antarctica. Ice would form on the
ropes and sails making the ships likely to
capsize
and
impossible to handle. The seas were full of icebergs and
pack ice. One serious collision could sink a ship. On
January 17, 1773, Cook’s ships were the first to cross the
Antarctic Circle.
Cook went to New Zealand for the Antarctic winter.
When the weather became better, he sailed south again. He
sailed along the ice edge but did not see any land. He did
show that if there was a continent it was much smaller
than the land drawn on maps. He also showed that the
places seen by Bouvet and Kerguelen were only islands and
not the edge of Antarctica.