The cold gray fog merges with the hard surface of the sea in an indistinct line. There is nothing else but the black slashes of wind-whipped wavelets.Dressed in fleece and impermeables, we huddle on the deck of the small boat, hunched against the drizzle, and peer into the gray distance. Shapes emerge – low slung rock islands, scraped clean millennia ago by glaciers, miniature ranges capped in snow-like coats of guano.
The boat below us rumbles into reverse and we slow within meters of the colonies: gannets and sea lions. In the cool, sub-Antarctic fall, they are active, playful. Out towards the Atlantic, there are Penguins too.The fog lifts over the course of the morning, revealing the southernmost range of the Andes, sentinel peaks – Chile to the south, Argentina to the north. Peaks that have gazed down on a history more fascinating than geography.
- The Yamana, naked in their canoes, stoking on-board fires and diving for molluscs in the kelp.
- The Beagle carrying Charles Darwin on his voyage of discovery to the Galapagos,
- The dregs of Argentina’s justice system sent to build their own prison and claim the land for their jailers
- Noble sailing ships run onto rocks for insurance money to buy motorized ships,
- Isolated Estancias, tens of thousands of hectares in size, created a hundred years ago to raise sheep on the barren hillsides,
- The Monte Cervantes, sinking Titanic-like just off-shore on its maiden voyage, 1,000 wealthy Argentines saved and posing for tourist photos with the soon-to-be extinct Yamana
- Admunsen fitting out his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole
- Supplies sent to young soldiers dying in an attempt to turn the Falklands into Las Malvinas
The deceptively calm waters of the 180 km Beagle Channel join the Atlantic to the Pacific along the southern shore of the Isla Grande Tierra del Fuego. With the Magellan Strait to the north and Cape Horn to the south, it is a name that played a storied role in the European quest to explore and explain and continues to be important to South American geopolitics.- 30-
