With the discovery of the route around the bottom of the continent, the Straits of Magellan became something of a backwater. As the centuries rolled past, mankind gradually moved away from barbarous nationalism and embarked on an era of scientific exploration – albeit still with commercial objectives – and it was in this new Age of Reason that men such as Philip Parker King and Robert FitzRoy were sent to make a proper investigation of Tierra del Fuego. And then,…
From the Beagle Channel several much narrower waterways wind their way north into the Magellan Strait, joining it just west of the infamous Cape Froward (the southernmost point of continental America). Arriving here, the traveller is no longer just trailing after FitzRoy and Darwin; he is sailing in the wake of dozens of heroes. Magellan was the first, of course. Or at any rate, he is believed to have been the first. According to a Venetian gentleman who was sailing…
Last week we introduced you to the second of three families who have abandoned conventional living to do their own thing. The third family hail from Argentina and although they’ve been living aboard for many years they’re still breaking their last ties with home and haven’t yet embarked over any oceans. Charter Gringo This third liveaboard family are taking things to the opposite extreme from the Anasazis. Fernando and Barbara are more interested in comfort than speed and they prefer…
Last week we introduced you to the first of three families who have abandoned the advised route, along the motorway, to pursue a more adventurous and footloose lifestyle; and now we want you to meet another such crew. Team Anasazi As someone once remarked after meeting the Mollymawks, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”. I like my cats unskinned… but you get my drift: There’s more than one way to go cruising with your kids. If Mike…
When my kids were small we often used to encounter other liveaboard families. Now, we seldom do. It’s hard to say why this might be, but I think the problem is not so much one of funding as of fear. These days, people are more afraid to turn their backs on free health care, the national curriculum, and state pension schemes – and that’s what you have to do if you want to cruise. Both Nick and I were largely…
Ever since I wrote about the Cape Verdes we’ve had people contacting us to ask about charters amongst those islands… So, before I embark on this expose of chartering around Cape Horn and to the nearby glaciers I should like to make one thing clear: We do not do charters to Cape Horn. We do not do charters to the glaciers. In fact, we do not do charters. Not to anywhere. Never have; never will. But there are people who…
The prettiest thing about Ushuaia is its setting. But there are actually lots of beautiful mountains and bays all throughout the Beagle Channel, so how did this place come to be ‘the chosen one’? Why is there a city here? Ushuaia means something like East-facing Bay. The Yaghan indians who once lived on the shores of the Beagle Channel named most of the coast in this same manner; pretty much all of their place-names end in waia (bay) because their…
Do you know, it was just one hundred years ago that Ernest Shackleton and his men were down in Antarctica, trying to cross the White Continent? Well it was. And the centenary of the event is being celebrated not only in Britain but also in Chile, because this country became inadvertently involved in the undertaking. Shackleton’s first adventures in Antarctica were as part of Robert Falcon Scott’s team. Whereas Scott began his career, at the age of just thirteen, as…
A few weeks ago we published an article about Puerto Williams, and on the following day we heard from Clare Allcard, wife of the centenarian Edward Allcard. Allcard was the first person to sail single-handed both to and fro across the Atlantic – or at least, he would have been if a young Azorean girl hadn’t stowed away in his forepeak on the last leg of that return voyage… The year was 1950, and at that time a young Portuguese…
Speaking of global warming… (and everyone should be speaking about it, constantly): What a difference 10 degrees makes! This time last year Tierra del Fuego was buried under a foot of snow. Last winter, in June, we set off to sail from Puerto Williams to Wulaia; and before we went, we had to spend more than an hour unfreezing the mooring lines. Each knot in each line was cast as if in iron. You could pick up a warp and…
