James Weddell 1823
The Antarctic 3
Starting from Cook’s reports on the rich wale and seal occurrence in the Southern oceans, whalers and sealers forged forward to unknown parts of the world long before the official expeditions started, just as the fur hunting Cossacks in the North did. Their names and their daringness, however, remained unsung both in the North and the South. The sealer James Weddel stayed in the South polar sea at the same time as Bellinghausen, and was the first one to pass through the most Southern branches of the Atlantic, which thus are named Weddel Sea.