
Visokoi Island
(Traversay Islands)
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Location: 56° 42' 22" S 27° 12' 15" W
SE island of Traversay Islands (q.v.) rising to c. 1 000 m, was discovered and charted by the Russian Antarctic Expedition, 4 January 1820, and named Ostrov Torsona in the original of one of the artist Mikhaylov's pictures in the Atlas accompanying Bellingshausen's book, after Lieutenant Konstantin Petrovich Torson (d. 1851), of the Vostok; re-named Ostrov Vysokiy or Ostrov Vysokoy [= high island] following Torson's liquidation as a 'Decembrist' through implication in the officers' revolt of December 1825; called Willey's Island following re-discovery of the island in 1830 by Capt. James Brown of the schooner Pacific. Landings were made on the island from HMS Protector (Capt. D. Forbes, RN) in 1960, from Shackleton (Capt. D. H. Turnbull) in 1961, and from HMS Protector (Capt. R. H. Graham, RN) in 1962 and 1964.