It is 1773. Captain James Cook sails the Resolution in his second expedition of discovery in search for the legendary Terra Incognita Australis. Aboard accompany him the naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg.
J.R. Forster shoots an unidentified bird. Georg, as he did with many of the plants and animals they encountered and collected, sketched it. They have been spotting them already for about a week but it is not until the 12th January, after rounding the Horn and venturing into the northern area of the Weddell Sea at a latitude of 64º 12´ S when they can examine one in their hands and recognise, describe, and name it as a new species. They just came across the beautiful Light mantled albatross.
6 o’clock, having but little wind, we brought to among some loose ice, hoisted out the bats and took up as much as filled all our empty casks and completed our water to 40 Tons, the Adventure at the same time filled all her empty casks. While this was doing, Mr Forster shot an albatross whose plumage was a dark grey colour, its head, upper sides of the wings rather inclining to black, with white eyebrows. We first saw these birds about the time of our first falling in with these ice islands and they have accompanied us ever since. Some of the seamen call them Quaker birds, from their grave colour…
Captain James Cook on board HMS Resolution
Unbeknownst to them, five years earlier, on the 1st of February 1769, the Endeavour was leaving the Drake Passage for the South Pacific during Cook’s first expedition around the world, when the voyage naturalist Joseph Banks got hold of what he called a “black-billed albatross”.
Banks' descriptions together with his colleague Daniel Solander and the artist Sydney Parker all indicate that they just got a specimen of Light mantled albatross. The first one to be described in a scientific manner, although the birds were already known by the sailors of the time as “Quaker birds”.
Joseph Banks and his team during this voyage described and brought back to England thousands of animal and plant species previously unknown in Europe. The trip and his posterior works not just helped him to gain fame and spread his scientific and social network but also to set the course of British science for the first part of the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, the Forsters somehow miss Banks’ discovery and description of such a beautiful and iconic albatross from the Subantarctic regions, a finding that apparently wasn’t published at the time. For that, we had to wait until Cook’s second voyage.
For the last couple of days, several of those smart albatrosses seem to have been following our progress, keeping a close look at our doings on deck and aloft.
With their slender appearance and smart dark plumage, they are among the smallest albatrosses, with wingspans of about two meters. Except when breeding, their habitat is entirely marine, and they will forage from the edges of the Antarctic pack-ice to about 40°S along a circumpolar pelagic distribution in the Southern Ocean.
We could all admire their impressive aerial activity, soaring over the seas around us, curious as they seem to be closing up to the ship to have a closer view, even offering some of their characteristic displays as synchronized and formation flying—typical flight patterns of couples when the pair bond has become established.
They have seen us following the wind braced square around the northern side of a relative Low Pressure System. While they effortlessly glide and follow the same wind, they surely wonder why many hands on deck are necessary, struggling to pull the braces to close-hauled when the wind veers from a Northwesterly, through the North to become a Northeasterly, trying to keep a course to the East-Southeast.
With all the canvas we have spread to the wind, one day we cover 140nm, the following 119—slightly less if we just count the distance gained in the right direction to the Horn.
Today the sun shines, then the sky is veiled now and then by passing squalls. The beginning of the night is under starry skies. Drizzle, haze, and light rain follows. Stronger blows come now and then in between calmer situations.
We just avoided falling in the centre of a relative Low Pressure System, which would have meant ending up in a windless area. Now, as we sail towards Cape Horn along the Roaring 40’s, we wait for the next Depression to catch up with us—a good chance to ride the fair winds on its northern and northwestern flank.