Advertisement
Published: December 5th 2015
Edit Blog Post
Sailing with Darwin and Fitz Roy
Our three days at the 'fin de mundo' (end of the world as they like to call it here) have been a nice finish to the trip. Yesterday we boarded a sailboat and sailed in the Beagle Channel, where Fitz Roy captained the ship (the Beagle) that carried Darwin on his voyage of discovery.
We sailed first to an island that held a large cormorant colony and then on to another one covered with sea lions. From there we motored over to "Isla H"; which, given the Spanish language, I believe is pronounced "Isla ...." (OK, Spanish teacher joke, the H is often not pronounced). We walked the island, spending time observing Black Cormorants on their nests and climbing to the top where the light house is.
We had a great view up and down the channel as well of the Darwin Range of the Andes. Carlos, first mate and guide, was a great naturalist, showing us how to get nectar from the flowers of the fire bush and letting us rub giant kelp goo over our hands as a hand softener.
He
also led us to a 'midden', a pile of shells, bones, and other waste from a campsite of the Yamana people. These folks showed up here about 10,000 years ago and ran around naked, just covering their bodies with sea lion fat--and here all our Goretex cannot seem to keep us warm enough. Even without clothes they thrived, with the women even swimming in the 48 degree water to gather shell fish. They kept fires lit all the time, the glow from them all over the shoreline leading early explorers to label this Tierra del Fuego (land of fire). Pushed out by settlers, tortured by diseases introduced by the whites, they have all but died out with only one living full blooded Yamana-speaking woman left alive.
We felt very fortunate that we had a great weather day for sailing. The trip had been canceled the day before as the 45 kph winds might have been fine for a sailboat race but were a little much for taking out tourists. We realized again that we were in a country that did not have many tort lawyers, as Carlos pointed out the life jackets but did not make us
put them on..."the water is so cold you will just die and the lifejackets would only serve to show us where the body is."
We loved walking around the docks and seeing the various crafts in harbor, from ships prepping for the run to Antartica to the cargo vessels piled high with shipping containers. Clearly the conflict over the Malvinas Islands with Britain is not forgotten as stickers with "Ushuaia, Capital of the Malvinas" were all over the place as well as monuments to the soldiers of the battle and the main street being named for the war.
Today we drove to Harberton Estancia, a 60,000 acre ranch established as ranch and missionary outpost in 1886. One of the members of the family, born here in 1933, was on hand to dock boats and manage the place. His wife was from Mansfield, Ohio and she had established the natural history museum and research center that we toured as part of the holding. We toured the various wood shops, sheep shearing barn (the shearers used clippers that were run by a mechanical system attached to a diesel engine), gardens and the rest. The had so
Kelp
It helps keep the skin soft! many sheep that it took a full month to shear all of them and then a ship arrived to take the packed wool.
Tomorrow we tackle the drive back across Tierra del Fuego making for Punta Arenas, Chile and then home. Of course our drive through blasting winds will be a bit easier than it will be for the two Germans we met today who had their motorcycles shipped here and are traveling the country on them. Yikes.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.233s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 71; dbt: 0.0824s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb