In March 1774, after more than three months without landfall, Captain James Cook and the crew of HMS Resolution reached the lonely shores of Easter Island. What they found was neither the paradise they hoped for nor the savage outpost some had imagined—but a stark volcanic land crowned with silent stone giants.
In December 1773, James Cook’s Resolution sailed where no ship had gone before—into the frozen heart of the southern ocean. Icebergs like floating fortresses, endless daylight, spoiled rations, and the creeping specter of scurvy tested every man aboard. This was the voyage that shattered the myth of a great southern continent beyond the ice.
A severed head, a grieving islander, and a snowfall that redefines the world—this episode captures one of the most haunting and thought-provoking chapters of the voyage.
In this episode, the HMS Resolution approaches the dangerous Cook Strait but is forced to halt due to a violent storm.
After months of abundance and warmth among the tropical islands of the Pacific, the 33rd episode of our journey marks a turning point: the Resolution leaves Tongatapu and heads back toward the southern latitudes of New Zealand.