Puerto Williams sits at the eastern end of the Beagle Channel on the northern coast Isla Navarino, a large island with a toothed mountain range at its heart. It’s very proud of its ‘southernmost city’ tag, despite having less than 3000 residents, and marks Chile’s ownership of the south side … Continue reading
The folded, twisted landscape of the southern tip of south America creates ing fjords leading off the Beagle Channel, twisting lines in the rock where the water is still and opaque under the dark sky. The cliffs end in ice, slow rivers coming to a shattered blue and white wall wall. … Continue reading
During the dark hours of 7 March we rounded the corner from the Pacific into the Beagle Channel, and had our first 15 minutes of ocean swell. My notes from the day record all the voyage crew were nervous of seasickness at this early stage: it wasn’t only me. Very … Continue reading
I’ve commented before that so many human-made places in the far South are ugly buildings sitting in magnificent landscapes. We called at Esperanza station in Hope Bay, on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula: it’s a busy research base and a stamp of Argentina’s territorial claims, a scatter of red corrugated … Continue reading
Lots of people have been kind enough to say they are looking forward to my photographs. So from tomorrow I will be posting pictures from the voyage, each one relating to the blog I posted on that equivalent day during the trip. And, yes, I will add some commentary. Most … Continue reading
The map is not the geography. Its presentation, our knowledge, is always partial, biased and incomplete, in the process of becoming. We measure the unknown on maps, progress towards a new geography. Our inching forwards (or backwards) takes us to a new place, or an old place seen again for … Continue reading
Fur sealers were first. Cook sent back reports of the millions of seals to be found in South Georgia and immediately they came. When Larson began industrial whaling he named his base Grytviken, Pot Cove, for the old cauldrons littering the beach, remnants of the seals melted for blubber. Mostly, … Continue reading
It is 0620 here. We put our clocks forward an hour last night so, while we are anchored just meters off the Antarctic Peninsula at 56 degrees 52″ west, we are now on South Georgia time. The sun is rising over the hills to our east (which I think are … Continue reading
Europa travels slowly between the hills and islands of the frayed western end of the channel between the Atlantic and Pacific. The pilot squints at his screen on the bridge, scrolling through references, checking every detail. His concentration doesn’t waver as crew step in to watch the radar show where … Continue reading
Punta Arenas reminds me of small towns in New Zealand. It has the neat rectangularity of Invercargill and the bright colours of Napier. The town shares the light with Bluff, on the south point of South Island. Even clouded and raining, the air is that particular southern oceanic grey, brighter … Continue reading
