From the National Geographic Explorer in South America, 11/6/2012, National Geographic Explorer
Aboard the
National Geographic Explorer
Patagonia
Chilean Fjords
With Mount Sarmiento’s peak above the clouds we traveled through the winding fjords of Chilean Patagonia and continued our exploration of this wild region. Skyscraping mountain peaks loomed over mirror calm waters with the only disturbance being the wake of National Geographic Explorer distorting the upside down landscape.
We wound our way back into increasingly smaller fjords, each one accompanied by steep glaciers with their actively calving faces serving as the day’s highlight. It’s these glaciers, formed by snow captured and compressed along the razor-edged mountain peaks, which drive much of the productivity in these waters. Grinding and slowly pulverizing the mountains, glaciers are a main source of essential minerals for primary producers. The combination of glaciers and strong, oxygen-rich currents leads to a proliferation of microscopic life which, in turn, supports the larger, more charismatic animals we have sought on this voyage. Using a small bongo net and camera equipped with high-power magnification, we were able to observe amphipods, jellies, copepods, and even the larvae of brittle stars—all important players in this productive marine ecosystem.
Enter travel details to receive reports from a single expedition
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Send Daily Expedition Reports to friends and family
*By clicking the submit button, I authorize Lindblad Expeditions to email me; however, I am able to unsubscribe at any time. For more details, see our Privacy Policy.
Please note: All Daily Expedition Reports (DERs) are posted Monday-Friday,
during normal business hours. DERs are written onboard the ship only and do
not apply to land-based portions of expeditions.
Cape Horn “Rounding the Horn”: what an evocative phrase for any seafarer! The select band of mariners who crewed the tall ships plying an intercontinental trade in grain, wool, or guano—a trade that lasted into the twentieth century—had privileged status over all other sailors, for they had run the gauntlet of the infamous seas of the southern ocean where waves can build to tremendous proportions as winds blow uninterrupted by land around the globe. It was the Dutch mariner Jacob Le Maire who is credited with having rounded Cape Horn for the first time in 1616, naming the rocky outcrop after the name of his ship, which happened also to be named after the hometown in the Netherlands of his fellow fleet captain William Schouten. In doing so he also established that Tierra del Fuego was an island and not part of the great southern continent as Ferdinand Magellan had suspected. Sir Francis Drake—national hero to the English, pirate to Argentinians—succeeded in rounding the Horn in his 1577 voyage of circumnavigation braving thirty-foot swells and a southwesterly gale in Golden Hind , a square-rigged galleon of some 400 tons. Two hundred years later, Captain Bligh struggled against the prevailing headwinds for an entire month in Bounty before, to the great relief of his crew, turning about and allowing the westerlies to fill his sails and push her eastward to Tahiti. Captain Cook preceded Bligh, successfully, and Captain Fitzroy was to follow in his wake; a plaque marks the landing of Robert Fitzroy on the Cape on 19 April 1830 during Beagle’s first voyage. Cape Horn has never been a place for the faint of heart. It has been described as a place that represents ultimate isolation and desolation. Here the seas are steely grey and the poor grassland more brown than green on these treeless rocky outcrops. Yet in the age of sail, before steam ships were more easily able to navigate the Magellan Strait and before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, rounding the Horn was an economic necessity that nurtured pride born of adversity. In the words of the poet John Masefield: “Cape Horn that tramples beauty into wreck/ And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb.” Cape Horn paid the respect it had earned as a cemetery of mariners, the scene of innumerable wrecks over the centuries. Yet we sailed overnight from the Beagle Channel with the luck of Magellan, who famously fell to the deck on his knees and wept when he saw the wide ocean horizons open up before him having successfully navigated through the straits that now bear his mane. With a misnomer that has endured in his honor, he named these southern waters “pacific” which they are most certainly not. With falling winds overnight we arrived off the cape in calm seas. Our voyage has enabled us to transit both the Magellan and Beagle Straits before approaching Cape Horn, giving us unique insights into centuries of maritime history. Today we joined that select band of mariners who have “rounded the Horn” …and survived to tell the tale!
The Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego Somewhere in our memories dwells a nursery rhyme, the source and author still buried deep with other childhood thoughts. Only fragments of sentences, random words can be retrieved but the image evoked is strong; clouds sailing across the sky like ships upon the sea. We were that ship on teal blue waters with wind-whipped waves and frothy white crests. From dawn ‘til dusk it took little imagination to see clouds of every shape and form as they dominated our day and our transit from Canal Ballenero to the ocean’s edge. The Beagle Channel is a maze of twisted, contorted channels and one wonders how early navigators ever found their way. The muted light of early morning revealed snow like powdered sugar sprinkled on bare hillsides and fingering into the upper limit of greenery. Or was that view simply a dream? It disappeared rapidly into a filmy mist that nestled into valleys, turning mountains and islets into layers of shades of gray. Hillsides receded into the distance with the softness of a watercolor painting. Seno Garibaldi hid its icy climax from our eyes in spite of hints and promises. Waterfalls cascaded from unseen peaks and momentary glimpses were offered of hanging tributary glaciers. Growlers and bergy-bits floated past, another hint of the mystery at its head. But clouds of horizontal snow advanced towards us like billowing smoke until we were fully engulfed. Retreat was prudent, both from the fjord and from the vast outdoors. Back in the Beagle, snow turned to sun filtering between swirls of charcoal and silver billowing across the sky. Periodically the sky turned blue but the vaporous vessels remained, borne on turbulent aerial currents. We toasted them with Santa and his elves serving glug and cookies on the deck, an early celebration of the holiday season. But then we remembered it is spring here in the southern hemisphere and Santa does not usually appear in association with snow. There was education and entertainment aplenty throughout the day. We could partake of all or some or simply sit and watch the clouds sail across the sky.
