urged the hiring of a number of replacements (generally deserters from a French whaler anchored in Hobart) and convinced him to reconsider his intentions; Astrolabe and Zelée both left Hobart on 1 January 1840. Dumont's plan was very simple: to head south, wind conditions permitting. Turning south The first days of the voyage mainly involved the crossing of twenty degrees and a westerly current; on board there were further misfortunes, including the loss of a man. Crossing the 50°S parallel, they experienced unexpected falls in the air and water temperatures. After completing the crossing of the Antarctic Convergence, on 16 January 1840, at 60°S they sighted the first iceberg and two days later the ships found themselves in the middle of a mass of ice. On 20 January the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle, with celebrations similar to crossing of the Equator ceremonies, and they sighted land the same afternoon. The two ships slowly sailed to the West, skirting walls of ice, and on 22 January, just before 9 in the evening, some members of the crew disembarked on the north-westernmost and highest islet Views of Débarquement Rock from north and south west, site of Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, Documents, Historic Sites and Monuments, length 244 m, height 18.7 m of the rocky group of Dumoulin Islands, at 500–600 m from the icy coast of the Astrolabe Glacier Tongue of the time, today about 4 km north from the glacier extremity near Cape Geodesie, and hoisted the French tricolour."J'envoyai aussitôt un de nos matelots déployer un drapeau sur ces terres qu'aucune créature humaine n'avait ni vues ni foulées avant nous". (I sent one of our sailors at once to deploy a flag on these lands which no human creature had seen nor trod before us) — from the Diary of Joseph Dubouzet, an officer on the Zélée). Dumont named the archipelago Pointe Géologie and the land beyond, Terre Adélie The map of the coast drawn under sail by the hydrographer is remarkably accurate given the means of the time. In the following days the expedition followed the coast westward then led for the first time some experiments to determine the approximate position of the South magnetic pole. They sighted the American schooner Porpoise of the United States Exploring Expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes on 30 January 1840, but failed to communicate due to a misunderstanding. On 1 February, Dumont