Fifteen Thousand Miles in a Ketch

I've been reading obscure adventures from another era: In 1907-1909 RAYMOND RALLIER DU BATY, author of Fifteen Thousand Miles in a Ketch, with a crew of four, sailed their ketch the J.B. Charcot on an adventure from France to Australia. But how to finance this little trip? Why, Hunt sea elephants for their oil on Kerguelen island in the subantartic of course!

The oil was sold at Melbourne to pay the crew and the ship was sold to cover other expenses of what was essentially a private voyage of exploration and discovery. Calls were also made at Rio & Tristan da Cunha. The author had been the Charcot's first officer on the Pourquoi Pas? expedition in 1903-5. Good reading!

What's interesting about the adventure is that even 100 years later, the perspectives of the author strike me as very similar to those of present-day adventurers--apart from the we'll-finance-this-with-seal-oil part.

The author also mentions the discovery of a cave that appeared to have been inhabited by ship-wrecked sailors at one point, with many interesting abandoned artifacts including a sea-elephant skull soup pot which the adventures wanted but were unwilling to be burdened with on the long hike back to the ship. I wonder if it's still there...