Mischief among the penguins

Genre : récit d'expédition.

Lieux : Crozet, Kerguelen.

Langue : anglais

Quatrième de couverture :

'Hans wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.' Thus ran H W Tilman's advertisement inThe Times. Undaunted by the candour, five crew (including an ex-foreign legionnaire and a double bassist who had cross the Atlantic 51 times while playing in the Queen Mary's orchestra) were willing ti join the expedition. on board Mischief, they set out from Lymington on 30 July 1959, bound for the mountainous and uninhabited Crozet Isles in the Southern Ocean.

Sailing via the Bay of Biscay, Las Palmas and Cape Town, Mischief and her crew reached Possession Island on 27 December, after a voyage of 10,000 miles, where they anchored near 'a beach of black sand, white with penguins'. There Tilman was able to indulge his passion for mountaineering (the Franch later named 'Mont du Mischief' in honour of her visit) before sailing to explore the ice-caps on the remote island of Kerguelen, 700 miles away. A visit to the French base on the island, where the men - againts all odds - managed to grow lettuces, radishes and tomatoes, sustained them for the long voyage home.