While waiting two years and three months to be rescued when their sloop Favorite was shipwrecked at Kerguelen in 1825, the British sealer and cartographer John Nunn and his crew spent some miserable months trying to survive on Saddle Island (now called Ile de l’Ouest) at 49°17’59” South, 70°31’56” East, buffeted by the merciless westerly winds.
Nunn concluded that there was a better chance of being discovered on the southeastern part of Grande Terre, the main island, so his group gradually skirted the southern coast in search of a place to settle in. (Image above is extracted from page 148 of Narrative of the Wreck of the “Favourite” on the Island of Desolation: detailing the adventures, sufferings and privations of J. Nunn, an historical account of the Island, and its whale and seal fisheries, by NUNN, John. Original held and digitised by the British Library. )
After passing Shoal water Bay (now called Baie Norvégienne), they were eventually able to find an area suitable for monitoring passing ships at Long Point (now called Pointe Charlotte) on the East coast of Courbet Peninsula, where they built two comfortable cabins which they baptized Hope Cottage.
The group was finally spotted in 1827 by Captain Alexander Distant on the schooner Sprightly, belonging to the celebrated shipowner Enderby of London. Nunn and his crewmates joined the Sprightly in hunting whales and elephant seals until 25 March 1829, at which point they were finally returned to Harwich, England four years after the shipwreck.
In 1997, the French post office issued a 20-franc air mail stamp to commemorate the shipwrecks and the construction of Hope Cottage.
Thanks and credit: Kerguelen Islands, French Southern and Antarctic Lands (Part 1) – Iles Kerguelen, TAAF (discoverfrance.net)