Discovery of Roché Island (South Georgia) and Clerke Rocks Having acquired a 350-ton ship and a
bilander of 50 tons in
Hamburg, with 56 men in the two vessels, La Roché obtained permission by the Spanish authorities to trade in
Spanish America. He called at the
Canary Islands in May 1674, and in October that year arrived in the port of
Callao in the
Viceroyalty of Peru by way of
Le Maire Strait and
Cape Horn. On the return voyage, they
careened their vessels on the coast of
Chiloé Island, Chile and set sail for
Baía de Todos os Santos (
Salvador), Brazil. Eventually, they found refuge in one of South Georgia's southern bays – possibly
Drygalski Fjord or
Doubtful Bay, according to
Matthews and other authors and its surviving 1690 Spanish précis by the mariner,
cosmographer and writer Capt. Francisco de Seixas y Lovera (translated into English by
Alexander Dalrymple, the first
Hydrographer of the
British Admiralty), "they found a Bay, in which they anchored close to a Point or Cape which stretches out to the Southeast with 28. 30. and 40.
fathoms sand and rock." The surrounding
glaciated, mountainous terrain was described as "some Snow Mountains near the Coast, with much bad Weather." Once the weather cleared up, they set sail and while rounding the southeast extremity of South Georgia sighted on their starboard
Clerke Rocks (Seixas y Lovera's "Southern land" extending 11 km in east–west direction and rising to 244 m (
James Cook's "Sugar-Loaf Peak"
Fleurieu and Admiralty variant routes and
Isla de los Estados area; caution notes warn of local "very strong currents", "dangerous and heavy tide race" and "heavy race and foul tide" French naval officer, explorer and hydrographer
Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu opined that La Roché's strait was actually
Stewart Strait running between
Willis Islands and
Bird Island off the northwestern tip of South Georgia, traversed and mapped by Capt. James Cook in 1775, This version was eventually discarded due to its discord with the existing historical description, and the passage got renamed to
Bird Sound. Likewise, the navigable That passage, however, is some 90 km long – no way of disemboguing through it "in 3
Glasses" – and narrowing to less than 5 km rather than "10 leagues little more or less." Argentine naval officer and historian Laurio Destéfani referred to the possibility of Roché Island actually being Beauchene Island itself. Yet there is no land to the southeast of Beauchene, whether within visibility range or further beyond, hence no "said Passage." Furthermore, with its elevation of 70 m that island could hardly be one of the two "high lands" in Seixas y Lovera's summary. and
Doubtful Bay One common drawback of Burney's conjecture and its varieties is that the Falkland Islands are not known for their "snow mountains near the coast." Another drawback would stem from La Roché's approaching his island from the west ("the Land which they now began to see toward the East"). Indeed, in such a westerly location with respect to the Falklands he would have already been in the "North Sea", even before his two-week anchorage and before sailing his strait – something refuted by the report narrating that, on departure, "steering ENE they found themselves in the No. Sea.") That a sailing ship in Drake Passage could be blown off course and find itself near South Georgia was demonstrated by the Spanish merchant ship
León captained by Gregorio Jerez on a voyage in service of the French company Sieur Duclos of
Saint-Malo, which ship made the second sighting of the island in June 1756. On that particular occasion, the Board of Expert Pilots in Cádiz examined the ship pilot Henri Cormer's report and concluded that the island was probably that sighted by Antoine de la Roche in 1675.
Varnhagen-Duperrey hypothesis , according to which La Roché's strait running between
Cooper Island,
South Georgia and
Clerke Rocks is 67 km wide (being equal to 36 minutes of
latitude), and centred at , while South Georgia itself extends from 53°57'S to 54°57'S latitude and 36°W to 38°15'W
longitude Brazilian historian
Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, in following French naval officer and explorer
Louis-Isidore Duperrey, supposed that South Georgia might have been discovered as early as April 1502 by a Portuguese expedition led by
Gonçalo Coelho, finding evidence of this in an episode reported by Florentine
Amerigo Vespucci. According to the latter's account, from Brazil the expedition headed south and reached 52°S
latitude, from where, after a four-day voyage in turbulent weather they made a landfall and sailed "about 20 leagues" along a rocky coast in severe cold weather. Vespucci made no mention of snow/ice cover, something with which South Georgia invariably impresses seafarers. For instance, Cook described
Possession Bay, South Georgia like this: "The head of the bay, as well as two places on each side, was terminated by perpendicular ice-cliffs of considerable height. Pieces were continually breaking off, and floating out to sea; and a great fall happened while we were in the bay, which made a noise like cannon ... and the valleys lay covered with everlasting snow." Coelho's voyage was commissioned by King
Manuel I of Portugal and duly documented in the Portuguese archives which, however, have no reports of venturing that far south, and indeed no information sourced to Vespucci. was officially presented before the Council in 1692, According to British historians Eric Christie and Robert Headland, the analysis of historical evidence refutes the Varnhagen-Duperrey hypothesis. Following La Roché's voyage, a sizeable island named
Isle Grande,
Isla Grande or
Isle Grand was placed on the map mostly northeast of Roché Island (like on the 1703 map by
Guillaume Delisle, 1710 map by
Nicolaes Visscher or 1715 map by
Herman Moll referred to below) and west-southwest of Gough Island, with near five degrees of latitude discrepancy between them. However, when Roché Island was relocated on the map eastwards to its more precise
longitude ascertained by James Cook in 1775 (using a
Kendall copy of
Harrison's marine chronometer), the cartographers would seem to have overlooked the necessity to adjust the location of Isle Grande accordingly. Apparently, the error of placing Isle Grande due north rather than northeast of South Georgia was originally committed by Cook himself in his 1777 chart of the southern hemisphere, and widely upheld by others because of his impeccable cartographic authoritativeness. 's detour in 1785 to search for Isle Grande in an area situated due north of
South Georgia and west-southwest of
Gough Island, with the latter shown on the chart as
Diego Alvarez. The mythical
Saxembourg Island is shown near the top of the map, to the north-west of
Tristan da Cunha. As a result of that
Lapérouse, but, although his reckoned latitude was correct (Gough is actually centred at 40°19'S), he missed the opportunity to find the island: "... we crossed near the supposed situation of the Isle Grande. At this time my vessel was almost a wreck, very short of provisions, and what remained in a very bad state, to which may be added an hurricane of wind and the winter season: circumstances that, I trust, will be a sufficient excuse for my not renewing my search of it as I had intended."). Each of these, it was said, "afar off appears like an island." Resuming his voyage from Isle Grande, La Roché successfully reached the Brazilian port of Salvador as intended, and eventually arrived in
La Rochelle, France on 29 September 1675. ==Legacy==