The Uranie lies at a depth of 6 meters in front of us, 358 meters from the shore. We are at the bottom of Berkeley Sound in the Falkland Islands, at the exact spot where Rose and Louis de Freycinet built their camp while waiting for a ship to rescue them and the 142 sailors and civilians stranded on this beach on February 14, 1820.
Sitting on a large wooden beam from the ship, at the very spot where Rose and Louis had pitched their tent, our eyes fall on the numerous debris of the Uranie scattered across the beach, brought in by the successive storms that regularly hit the bottom of the bay. No one is interested in this story anymore! Dominique, the son of Paul Watson, who’s family has owned these lands for several generations, confirms that they have never seen any French explorers in Uranie Bay, which they call "Long Island Bay." With great frankness, he tells me, "Hubert, you know, we use the remains of the Uranie to make fires on the beach and for our BBQs, since there are no trees on our island! »
– Hubert Sagnières, Field notes May 12, 2024, Falkland Islands
1 Pellion, J. A. "View of the Uranie camp in French Bay of the Falkland Islands after the shipwreck of the Corvette." Hand-colored engraving, 27 cm x 19 cm, c.1825. Taken from the Historical Atlas of the Voyage around the World [...] by Freycinet, p. 109. Pellion was a topographical painter, naval draughtsman, and midshipman aboard the Uranie. Photo credit: Hubert Sagnières.
Flight around the World with the PC-12 “Spirit of St-Exupéry” - 2024 Uranie Bay, Falkland Islands
The shipwreck of the Uranie recounted by Louis de Freycinet:
“I had fortunately rounded Cape Horn and had already dropped anchor in the Bay of Good Success in the Le Maire Strait when a furious southwest hurricane came upon me and forced me to put back out to sea; I cut my cable and only owed my ship's salvation to the speed of this maneuver. During the two days of the storm, I had to let myself be driven by the wind without any sail. It would have been difficult, or at least very lengthy, to return to my previous anchorage at that time; therefore, I preferred to make for the Falkland Islands, which lay downwind and at a short distance. I set sail in that direction and soon sighted the lands of this group of islands, of which I followed the northern coasts to reach the bay where Bougainville had established his colony. I arrived at its entrance in the afternoon of February 14th. The weather was magnificent, and the breeze, though not weak, allowed me to carry all my sails. I navigated with caution, had a lookout at the masthead, and had the depth constantly sounded. Everything should have inspired me with the greatest confidence when suddenly the ship struck against an underwater rock whose existence nothing could have led us to suspect: indeed, the sounding on the starboard side indicated 14 fathoms of water and on the other side 12 fathoms; so that the fatal rock had a width smaller than that of the corvette! I promptly got the ship afloat again by furling all sails. At first, it was not noticed that this incident had caused us to take on water; but it soon declared itself with such violence that we had reason to be alarmed. As had happened to Captain Cook, it seems that a piece of the rock against which we had struck had remained in the ship, but less fortunate than him, it had detached afterwards due to the speed of our wake. Nevertheless, we immediately rushed to the pumps, but despite their excellence and being perfectly manned, we still saw with dismay that they could not keep up with the influx of water; it continued to gain on us. Therefore, I immediately felt the need to run the Uranie aground to at least save the crew and, if possible, also the work of the expedition. (2)”
2 De Freycinet, Louis Claude de Saulces. Voyage around the world, performed on the corvettes of H.M.S. Uranie and la Physicienne during the years 1817-1818-1819-1820, by Mr. Louis de Freycinet, Pillet Ainé, Paris, 1824-1829.
Shipwreck of the Uranie by Jaques Arago:
“Suddenly, crack!... the ship comes to a stop, embedded on a rock and tilts... The deepest silence reigns among us.
Immobile! immobile! and the sea lashes the sides of the corvette and everyone looks at each other with a gaze that says: It's all over, and a huge fragment of the keel floats around us. At this sight, a sad murmur is heard. Silence! says the whistle of the courageous boatswain, and everything falls silent again, except for the wandering waves that receive orders only from God.
The tireless caulker comes up holding the sounding line:
—The water is gaining on us, captain; the ship is in peril, we must man the four royal pumps.
—To the pumps! cries the captain.
And here we all are at work. However, we could not remain in this horrible position any longer, and while part of the crew fights tirelessly against the terrible element that devours us, the others launch the longboat as well as the yawl and the small boat; the sails are oriented to furl everywhere, in order to make the corvette spin, to make it stern and thus detach it from the rock that holds it captive. Success crowned this maneuver, and we moved, but without much hope for the future, as the progress of the waters was frightening. A pump breaks, it is repaired; a mast creaks, it is reinforced; the invaded corvette lists horribly, but no one is disturbed and each one at his post only thinks of the duty imposed on him. The caulker ascends to the deck again, and in a calm and solemn voice, he announces that all hope is annihilated. (3)”
3 Arago, Jacques. Memoirs of a Blind Man, Voyage Around the World by Mr. J. Arago, vol. 4, Hortet and Ozanne, Paris, 1839, pp. 233-234.
Shipwreck of the Uranie by Rose de Freycinet:
“On the 14th, the weather being fairer, we headed towards the French bay, where we were to anchor. We were near doubling the last point that hid its entrance when the ship struck on a rock. Its progress was momentarily halted; it was set back on course. The inspections carried out in the hold at first revealed nothing new. This initial inspection was followed by another, after which it was noted that water was entering the hold with considerable force, suggesting that a piece of the rock struck by the Uranie had remained lodged in the hull and that the wake of the ship had dislodged it. The place where we were to anchor was very far away; all the shores surrounding us were steep and lined with rocks: the ship would have been completely lost there. Louis then put all his men to the pumps and resolved, if the pumps could sustain the ship, to reach a sandy beach to save at least what the Uranie contained, that is to say, the instruments and the results of the expedition. Was it not cruel to see two years of work and toil thus swallowed up! However, the water was still gaining, the wind was weak, and the strength of the men, who had not eaten for a long time, was beginning to wane. Nightfall surprised us in this cruel position!... Withdrawn into my cabin, abandoned to all the horror of our situation, I could do nothing useful for the common salvation. I was entirely absorbed in my reflections, however distressing they might be, about how the event affecting us would end; the ship might sink and we would hardly save ourselves. What would be our fate afterward? Cast without any resources on this deserted island! I was drawn from my thoughts by the arrival of Mr. the abbot, who, tired from pumping, came near me to console me in my solitude and pray with me to the Supreme Being to cast a compassionate eye upon us. Despite the unprecedented efforts, as the water continued to rise, biscuits were brought up to our cabin to keep them from getting wet. It was one o'clock in the morning and the weather was completely calm. The sailors' courage was sustained in an astonishing manner: the officers, occupied with them, encouraged and urged them to sing, so that this unfortunate Uranie, half submerged, resounded with songs and shouts, somewhat out of place, in such a distressing situation, with the crew's state of mind! (4)”
The history of the Falkland Islands is deeply intertwined with France. On January 31, 1764, Louis Antoine de Bougainville entered French Bay and established the first French and Acadian settlement at Port Louis. In March 1791, it was Étienne Marchand's turn to land on the island, followed by Camille de Roquefeuil aboard the Bordelais in December 1816, and then the Uranie in 1820. Louis-Isidore Duperrey, who was also aboard the Uranie, also revisited the island during his own global expedition in November 1822. Over time, numerous French sailors have frequented these shores. More recently, two French navigator families have established farms and raise sheep, including the renowned Jérôme Poncet and his iconic vessel, Damien (5).
A long stopover in the Falkland Islands was indeed necessary during our world tour, to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by French navigators and —the very subjects of my book published this year, Daring French Explorations (6). But not so fast!
4 De Freycinet, Rose de Saulces. Campaign of the Uranie (1817-1820). Journal of Madame Rose de Saulces de Freycinet, according to the original manuscript accompanied by notes by Charles Duplomb. Geographical, Maritime, and Colonial Publishing Society, Paris, 1927.
5 Jérôme Poncet is famous, among other things, for completing a five-year round-the-world journey on the Damien, for his Antarctic explorations aboard the Damien II, and for his 20 years of reporting for the BBC in Antarctica aboard the Golden Fleece.
6 Sagnières Hubert. Daring French Explorations,1714-1854, Trailblazing adventures around the world. Featuring Bougainville, Laperouse, Dumont d’Urville, and more., Foreword by Edward Duyker, Flammarion, 2024, ISBN 978-2-08-042845-5.
Months of preparation were required: initially to secure authorizations from the military authorities overseeing air arrivals, then to locate the owners of the farms hosting the Bougainville and Uranie sites, and finally to obtain permission to explore their lands.
Furthermore, the journey itself presented complexities. Flights from Argentina cannot land in the Falkland Islands! However, we were in Ushuaia, Argentina, after crossing Cape Horn, and Ushuaia is in Argentina. Therefore, we had to travel back up to Punta Arenas, Chile.
Furthermore, the timing of our visit coincided with the onset of winter in the Falkland Islands, marked by fierce winds with gusts reaching up to 70 knots. These conditions made it imperative to safeguard our aircraft. The small civilian airport in Stanley, the capital, could not accommodate us, as there was no service for non-registered aircraft in the Falklands, and no way to secure our Pilatus.
Our only solution was to obtain authorization from the RAF military to land at Mount Pleasant, the British military airport, and leave the plane there, securely tied down and under surveillance.
Our request for refueling on Ascension Island had been denied earlier this year by British authorities. How should we proceed? Fortunately, Nigel Philips, Governor of Saint Helena Island, provided a solution by suggesting we reach out to his counterpart in the Falklands, and all doors opened!
Dave Morgan, Governor of the Falkland Islands, put us in touch with key individuals: Bruce Wilks, Director of Civil Aviation, and Tori Turner, responsible for air operations at Mount Pleasant.
Bruce, an Australian resident of the Falkland Islands for two decades, guided us through the necessary procedures for low-altitude flights over French Bay and advised us on navigating around RAF Typhoon fighter jets.
Tori is our liaison officer during our expedition to the Falklands. She is one of the RAF’s few female fighter pilots on a Typhoon aircraft. Our Pilatus will be parked under her windows, securely tied to the ground with straps, facing gusts capable of lifting it off the ground without the engine running! Her husband, James, is also a fighter pilot and a member of the Red Arrows, the British equivalent of the French Air Force display team.
Securing access to the sites we wished to explore presented another hurdle.
Fortunately, the solution finally came through Jérôme Poncet, a legendary French navigator who has been living in the Falkland Islands for 30 years, on Beaver Island, west of the main island. I reached out to Jérôme through my friend Éric Brossier, Arctic navigator aboard the Vagabond, who is also joining us on this expedition. Jérôme shared the contact information of Paul Watson, owner of Uranie Bay, and Peter Gilding, owner of Port Louis. With enthusiasm, Paul and Peter granted us permission to explore their lands steeped in French history!
On site, a low-altitude flight over French Bay provided us with an initial overview. We flew, with our Pilatus, the same route that the Uranie had taken: from the entrance of the bay at Volunteer Point, to the rock struck by the ship, to the drift towards the bottom of the bay ending on the beach south of Long Island. The Uranie's maneuver, which veered to starboard and crashed into the rock now bearing its name on all maps—Uranie Rock—became easily understandable.
We would later learn that since then, many boats have continued to strike this rock, with the most recent incident occurring five years ago!
Paul Watson's farm is located about 1 hour and 30 minutes from Stanley. On that morning, the temperature is 5 degrees, and the wind blows strongly as we pass through the access barrier to the farm, easily recognizable by the sole two trees visible on the horizon.
Dominique, the son of Paul Watson, greeted us upon our arrival. I handed him a copy of my book and provided him with high-definition copies of the maps and drawings from the historical atlas of Freycinet's voyage, which he was previously unaware of. On site, he shows us all the Uranie debris scattered on the ground, which have been used over the years to demarcate the farm's pathways, its vegetable garden, and even the children's play area! Outside his door, cannonballs from the Uranie are displayed, found on the beach after storms.
"Hubert, the beach is vast, take a stroll, you'll see there are still many pieces of the Uranie left. The beach is yours!"
We have in our hands the drawing of the camp dating back to 1823 as well as the McCarthy report (7), named after the Australian expedition conducted in 2002 by historians from the Department of Maritime Archaeology of Western Australia. This report contains the GPS coordinates of the wreck, which are 51° 35.063' S and 58° 03.630' E, as well as a freehand sketch of the campsite.
As we depart from the farm, our GPS reads a distance of 955 meters to the Uranie. The beach runs north-south, and we head directly south, stepping onto sand strewn with seaweed, mussels, and shells. The tide is low, and the wind continues to blow fiercely over the steady swell, with waves crashing forcefully onto the shore. These very waves that kept Rose from sleeping:
"All is quiet in the camp, save for the sentinel who has just turned his hourglass and struck midnight before retiring to bed. The only sound that disturbs me, and will haunt me for a long time, is the one of the waves crashing against the rocks of the shore, not far from our tent. (8)"
Our first objective is to pinpoint the Uranie's position in relation to the beach. The officers' camp lies perpendicular to the stranded ship, which itself is aligned with a small rock formation known as “Dog's Head Reef.” At this low tide, we spot it easily.
7 McCarthy, M. The Uranie Site(s) Report of an inspection and the context of the survivor’s camp, wreck and wreckage emanating from the loss of La Corvette du Roi l’Uranie at the Falkland Island in 1820 (With contributions from D. Eynon, P. Godard, R. Sexton and JW., Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 160, 2002.
View from the "Spirit of St Exupéry", Port Louis in the foreground, Long Island, and the beach of Uranie on the right, with the entrance to French Bay (Berkeley Sound) in the background. Photo credit: Hubert Sagnières
8 De Freycinet, Rose de Saulces. Campagne de l’Uranie (1817-1820). Journal de madame Rose de Saulces de Freycinet, d’après le manuscrit original accompagné de notes par Charles Duplomb, Société d’éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, Paris, 1927, p. 133.
On the landward side, facing the rock and situated between the beach and the prominently visible peat bogs, lies a flat area where the officers' camp, along with Rose and Louis's tent, once stood. We set up our base camp there for our explorations. Behind us, small dunes lead to very damp peat bogs about 15 meters higher. It would have been impossible to establish a camp there, as the ground is saturated with water.
On February 29, 1820, Rose de Freycinet details the establishment of the camp:
"We pull the longboat ashore, and a tent is set up for the carpenters, another for the blacksmiths. Our camp really looks like a small village. There is a tent for Louis, one for the instruments and papers where we eat, one for the staff, one for the naval cadets, and one for the volunteers. Three other tents are set up for the hospital, the sailors' barracks, and for the masters. There are also small tents for the kitchens and supplies. A little further away and isolated from the camp is the powder magazine, where all the weapons and ammunition are locked up. We are still busy bringing down from the ship whatever we can save. (9)"
To the north is the military camp, and to the south is the hunters' camp. Continuing southward, we walk near the small river nicknamed the “Aiguade de l'Uranie” (watering of the Uranie) where the sailors responsible for hunting and fishing to feed the entire crew had settled. It is situated slightly higher, near the peat bogs.
9 Ibid., p. 129.
Here too, we find the beach littered with debris from the Uranie: wooden beams, copper or iron nails, numerous copper plates covered in verdigris, a very large ring likely used for mooring. At several campfire sites, we gather nails and other pieces of metal.
We spot three pairs of wooden structures shaped like "L's" used to hold the arches of the Uranie's hull. One of these pairs was documented in a photographed taken by the Australian historians in 2002 (10). We proceed to take the same photo in the same location: a testament to the erosion of time!
Then, we compile an inventory of the main debris, photographing each one. Every nail, every piece of debris has its own hidden story! The remnants of the Uranie spread over an area approximately 300 meters long by 50 meters wide. As we head back north, we reach the military camp, a much larger flat area. Several large metal shapes emerge from the sand: remnants of pumps or other machinery? Here too, copper plates about 1 mm thick protrude here and there from the sand.
10 McCarthy, M. Rose and Louis de Freycinet in the Uranie, an illustrated research essay for the WA Museum’s Journeys of Enlightenment exhibitions, 2008. Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum, Department of Maritime Archaeology, No. 236, 2008, p. 23.
We return to the shipwreck site, where Rose and Louis's tent once stood, to hold a small ceremony in their honor. Rose wrote that she found courage in singing Ave Marias: it's our turn to sing now!
Surprisingly, the crew's accounts barely mention the penguins that now populate Long Island. Neither Rose, Louis, nor Jacques Arago discuss the abundance of mussels and cockles that dot the rocks and shore. "They are delicious" remarks Dominique Watson.
As we sit on a wooden beam washed by the sea, we watch the birds snatch up cockles, soar high into the air, and release them to crash on the ground before feeding on them. It's an addictive game! It's surprising that Rose didn't mention this scene in her writings.
Then, we ascend the hills overlooking the bay to the south, just as Rose and Louis did on March 20, 1820, to observe the maneuvers of the ship that appeared on the horizon the day before and might save them. From this vantage point, the commanding view of the beach allows us to pinpoint the locations of the various camps.
That day, the captain of the sloop, tasked with Louis's instructions and accompanied by an officer, was to deliver the rescue request to his mother ship, a whaler anchored 20 leagues off on the west coast of the Falkland Islands.
Rose describes the scene:
“The lightness of the wind only allowed the sloop to weigh anchor around six o'clock. All day long, we watched it tacking to exit the bay. Louis and I went for a long walk towards the top of the mountains bordering the south of the plain where we are camped. The weather was beautiful, and we enjoyed a magnificent view of the peaks, from where one can see a large part of the island. (11)”
In the distance, we can see the entrance to the bay of Port Louis, where Bougainville had established his colony in 1766. Rose reports that this bay was also explored by the sailors of the Uranie:
"A boat is sent to the location of an old French settlement, the remains of which could be of great use to us. These gentlemen return the next day: they found nothing but ruins. The walls of the houses remain, but none are covered. They slept in a large oven.(12)"
It's fascinating to consider that at the bottom of this very bay, the first two women to circumnavigate the world both stayed for several months each: Jeanne Barret in 1767 and Rose de Freycinet in 1820, both French, over five decades apart.
A second exploration, further down from the dunes and a bit away from the waves, allows us to see numerous debris, partially burned, remnants of the campfires mentioned by Dominique Watson. The larger wooden pieces lie there, partially buried in the sand. We meticulously document each one, capturing photos and recording their GPS positions.
11 De Freycinet, Rose de Saulces. Campaign of the Uranie (1817-1820). Journal of Madame Rose de Saulces de Freycinet […], Société d’éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, Paris, 1927, p. 136.
12 Ibid., p. 128.
Having gained a better understanding of the site and the camps' layout, we traverse from south to north through the hunters' camp, then the officers' camp where Rose and Louis stayed, and finally the large camp of sailors and soldiers where all the frigate's armaments were stored.
As the evening falls, accompanied by stronger winds and biting cold, we are struck by the full extent of the shipwrecked sailors' misfortune: while it's May for us, for them, it was late April. We can easily envision their miserable nights spent under unheated tents, barely protected from the rain, as described by Rose :
“Whether it rained or not, the coolness of the night and the dew, from which we were only protected by a canvas, ensured that our sheets were always damp. Lucky if in our old age, we're not burdened with rheumatism; and if so, I shall console myself with the thought that I could have perished on the very rock that we had touched…(13)“
After our exploration, we return to the Watson's farm to meet Dominique. We show him all our discoveries and photos, hoping to inspire him to preserve this piece of French heritage. He seems intrigued by the story of Rose and Jeanne's presence. Yet, what can be done to save what remains of the Uranie? A sense of sad resignation washes over us.
13 Ibid., p. 129.
On April 27, 1820, Rose and Louis finally left their camp and the Uranie, lying on its side, stripped of everything that could have been useful for their survival. Louis's objective had been achieved; they had managed to save the entire crew and all the scientific collections from the voyage, thanks to which today we have received sketches, plans, and maps of all their discoveries. They returned to France aboard the Mercury, an American ship bound for Montevideo. During the journey back, Louis bought the ship, took possession of it, and renamed it the Physicienne.
The Uranie had departed from the port of Toulon on September 17, 1817, and it was aboard the Physicienne that the crew returned to the port of Le Havre on November 13, 1820.
Before departing from French Bay and the Uranie's beach, it is the text of Louis-Isidore Duperrey that best summarizes the feelings that animate us:
"Here we are now like exiles in a land where the sight is only interrupted by barren mountains, where our feet tread only upon vast plains resembling the vast pampas of America in their uniformity, where our ears are struck only by the whistling of unleashed winds and the harsh, piercing cries of the birds and amphibians surrounding us.
Despite the almost uninterrupted bad weather during our stay at French Bay, we tirelessly pursued our scientific work. A natural sense of interest, stemming from our three-month sojourn on this deserted land following the shipwreck of the corvette Uranie, initially directed our steps towards the place that had served as our refuge. Excited by an indescribable curiosity, a source of a thousand diverse emotions, we lingered for a long time, pressing our steps along the entire stretch of coast where the camp had been established. (14)"
Duperrey, Louis Isidore. Voyage Around the World, Executed by Order of the King, on His Majesty's Corvette La Coquille during the Years 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825. Paris, A. Bertrand, Historical Atlas, p. 90
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