But strange as the journey may be, it's nowhere near as strange as what they will find waiting at its end. Neither Poe nor Verne had actually visited the remote Kerguelen Islands, located in the south Indian Ocean, but their works are some of the few literary (as opposed to exploratory) references to the archipelago.
The Captain must convince the crew of the Halbrane to take a long and dangerous trip to Antarctic in hope of finding his brother and any other survivors of the Jane.