Photo album: "From Paris toward Kerguelen"

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This time I don't follow the usual route, I start earlier in the year, on September 23rd 1974, and for a summer campaign longer than the last ones, 6 months. We will travel on another ship, Marion-Dufresne, which began its service last year. Its home port is Marseille, it belongs to the Messageries Maritimes (MM) company and is charted by the administration of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF) to supply the scientific bases of south Indian Ocean (Kerguelen, Crozet and Amsterdam) and perform oceanographic research. Since the Suez canal has been closed since 1967, after the Six-Day war, the ship has to pass through Gibraltar strait, to sail around Africa and to go beyond the cape of Good Hope to enter the Indian Ocean. We will join her in Cape Town, South Africa. We will proceed, then, our journey toward Kerguelen islands where we will arrive on October 5th 1974, after two short calls (Marion island and Crozet islands).

On September 23rd, 1974, en route to Kerguelen, first stop in Libreville: an aeroplane of Air Gabon.

We leave Paris, on Monday September 23rd 1974, around 10:30, in a DC8 of the company UTA. We make a first stop in Libreville, Gabon, around 17:15. We start again one hour later, with the same plane, heading to Johannesburg where we land at about 23:45. We take off on September 24th around 7:30, in a Boeing 727 of the South African company SAA-SAL. We stop briefly in Kimberley around 8:30 and arrive in Cape Town at 9:45.  We leave South Africa, aboard Marion-Dufresne, on Thursday September 26th, around 3 a.m.. On Monday September 30th, around 6 a.m., we make a short call, in Prince Edward archipelago, to disembark two South Africans joining their scientific base in Marion island. On Wednesday October 2nd we make a second call in front of Possession island (Crozet archipelago) where is a French scientific base. We arrive to Kerguelen islands, in front of Pointe Susanne to unload construction materials, on Friday October 4th. We disembark at the base of Port-aux-Français on Monday October 7th.  We will leave Kerguelen, aboard Marion-Dufresne, on Monday March 17th 1975, in the evening and we will arrive at La Réunion on Sunday, March 23rd around 8:30 a.m.. I'll leave that island at 20:45 in an Air France's Boeing 707 which will let me in Djibouti on March 27th at 1:20 a.m.. I will start again, the same day at 7:15 a.m., with a DC6 of Air Djibouti that will land in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) around 9 a.m.. I will live Ethiopia on Friday March 28th 1975, at about 15:45, in a Boeing 707 of Air France and will land in Cairo around 18:30. I will leave Egypt on Monday April 14th 1975, at 13:45 in a Boeing 707 of Air France which will fly me from Cairo to Paris, Charles de Gaulle, where I will arrive around 18:30.

In Cape Town, I make Marion-Dufresne's acquaintance. This ship permit to supply the scientific bases of Crozet, Kerguelen and Amsterdam island. She transports the personnel, the fuel, the food and the material necessary to the operation of those bases. She makes several rotations each year. Between these rotations she is used on oceanic research campaigns for which she is fitted with specialised equipment. Her overall length is 112 metres and she is 18-metre wide. She can transport up to 100 passengers and her crew is composed of 8 officers and 23 sailors. Her Net Register Tonnage (NRT) is 3044 (that is a commercially usable volume of 8641 m3) and the maximum mass she can carry is 3722 metric tons (persons + cargo). Her maximum cruise speed is 15 knots (i.e. approximately 28 km/h).

From the helicopter platform, at the rear of the ship, I look at the Table Mountain (approximately 1100-metre high) where we are going, with a few colleagues, on an excursion.

We are at the lower station of the cableway which will transport us to the top of this table mountain. The lower station altitude is 356 metres and the height of the upper station is 1067 metres. The length of the cable is 1220 metres. The cabin capacity is 23 persons and its speed is 4.2 metres per second. The cableway opened in October 1929.

From the cabin of the cableway we have a panoramic view over Cape Town and the harbour.

Looking upwards, we can see the cable disappearing inside the clouds which hide the upper station.

Table Mountain is a National Monument under the protection of the Table Mountain Preservation Board. Flora and fauna are protected.  From the top of the mountain we enjoy a beautiful panorama.

Along the side of the mountain, clouds are developing at a breathtaking speed.

Cape Town seen from the lower station of the cableway.

Back to the city, we have a last look at the Table Mountain . The clouds hiding its top are tinted of pink by the setting sun.  We are living tomorrow!

In the harbour, we look at the stern of Marion-Dufresne specially fitted for any kind of operations during oceanographic research campaigns: measurements with sensors, drillings and various samplings.

On September 26th 1974, we have left Cape Town for a few hours and sailors are taking advantage of the fine weather to add a coat of paint to a crane.

An albatross is flying alongside the ship.

On September 30th we make a short call in front of Marion island, in the Prince Edward archipelago. We disembark two South African people who are joining their scientific base. A 13-people team is working on this little island (approximately 20 km by 12 km). We won't have the possibility to land.

On October 2nd we make a second call in front of Possession island (archipelago Crozet) where is the French scientific base Alfred Faure (30 people are working there during winter). I am fortunate to be able to land for a short time with a few of my colleagues. The helicopter lets us at the base built on a plateau which dominates the sea from an altitude of 140 metres and we have to walk down to the wharf, in the valley, where a launch will take us and get us back to the ship.

We are walking down the road which goes alongside the cableway used to carry up to the base, heavy loads disembarked onto the wharf by means of pontoons towed by motorboats. Down in the valley, there is a colony of hundreds of thousands royal penguins.

On the beach, we perceive adult royal penguins of clear colour if they are facing us or dark colour is the are looking the other way. The young royal penguins are uniform brown coloured.

On the shore, adult royal penguins. At the foreground, the white bird is a chionis (chionis minor crozettensis).

Face-to-face encounter between a member of the CNES team (foreground), a member of GRI (Pierre de Château-Thierry, called Patou), on the one hand and a group of young royal penguins on the other hand. These penguins are tall enough and certainly close to the moult. A few chionis are scattered amongst the penguins.

At foreground a big male elephant seal, a "pasha" as they call them here, shouts a warning (well visible because of the vapour coming out of its mouth in the cool morning): "Stay away from me!"

We leave Possession island a few hours after our arrival, in the meantime, mail, supplies, material, will have been unloaded and people landed or embarked… I don't really know because we were too much caught by this first contact with an island of the TAAF to pay attention to the exchanges between the ship and the base of Alfred Faure.

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