SPEIRS BRUCE Outcast of the Falklands Laurie Island under surveillance by two Adélie penguins,1903

meteorological station. He travelled to the Arctic on another expedition where he met Prince Albert of Monaco, a noted hydrographer, A friendship blossomed and the Prince invited him to join his team on a voyage round Spitsbergen.

In 1899 he applied to join what was called the National Antarctic Expedition but fell out with the President of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Sir Clements Markham, over his offer to secure funding for a second ship which he described - to Markham’s fury - as the “Scotish Expedition.” The offer was refused but Speirs Bruce’s backing from the wealthy Coats family was secure; in 1902 he set out from Troon, Ayrshire, in the specially converted Scotia for his own “National Expedition,” albeit for a different nation.

Hekla fited out and renamed Scotia, January 1902 August 2015 87