Where we are

Apparently the Panomax panoramic antenna cam on our ship is still broken. According to reader Phil, a computer technologist who made inquiries, the camera “appears to be working but the images are not being transmitted.” This eliminates the chance I have to show you what things look like from the ship.

We are approaching the city of Puerto Natales via complex inland channels. (The journey through the fjords yesterday was spectacular.)

And a zoomed-out view (we’re the circled ship, but note several others around Cape Horn. Some of these may be other ships headed to Antarctica.

Puerto Natales (population 18,505 in 2012), is the capital of the Chilean province of Última Esperanza (“Last Hope”). Wikipedia notes that the name was given this way:

. . . by the sailor Juan Ladrilleros, who was seeking the Strait of Magellan in the year 1557. It was his “last hope” to find the Strait after exploring the maze of channels between the waters of the Pacific and the mainland. It was not until three centuries later, in 1830, that another major expedition sailed through the fjords and channels of Última Esperanza: the British expedition of the sloop HMS Beagle. Some of the expedition members such as Robert FitzRoy, William Skyring and James Kirke as well as their senior officers are remembered by several place-names in the area. Commander Fitzroy was the captain during the Second voyage of HMS Beagle (1831–1836).

I’ve given my lecture on “Darwin, the Beagle, and the Fuegians” (the Yamana people, of which only one old lady, 91 year old Christina Calderón, remains), and I think the talk went over quite well, judging by the passengers’ comments. The Beagle spent many months in this area, for, as you may remember, its mission on both of its voyages was to survey the coastline of South America. That was to facilitate British ships getting to the Pacific Ocean: the only way in those pre-Panama Canal days. A passage around South America involved navigating to the complicated (and tumultuous) waters of Patagonia without having to enter the open sea south of the continent’s tip: the dreaded Drake Passage, famous for bad weather and high seas.

One of the place names nearby is the Isla Fitz Roy, named after the captain of the Beagle, who commanded the ship on part of the Beagle’s first voyage (Fitz Roy’s predecessor, Pringle Stokes, was a depressive who shot himself in this area as he couldn’t take the bad weather and gloomy scenery). Robert FitzRoy took over at the age of only 23, and then was named full commander of HMS Beagle during its second voyage (1831-1836)—the famous trip when Charles Darwin was aboard.

FitzRoy was also prone to depression, and realized that he needed a “British gentleman” to keep him company (and on an even keel) during the voyage. And so Charles Darwin became a kind of “therapy person” for FitzRoy. (Darwin was not, as many think, the Beagle‘s naturalist, as there was already a ship’s naturalist).  And, like his predecessor, FitzRoy also committed suicide, cutting his throat with a razor in England on April 30, 1865. FitzRoy also vehemently objected to Darwin’s theory of evolution, which was published 5½ years before the suicide.

The camera website gives this as our position. I don’t trust the map 100%, but we appear to be near the Isla Fitz Roy:

Puerto Natales is the gateway city to one of the world’s great wilderness areas, Torres del Paine National Park. It is most famous for its mountains and especially the “pinnacles”, shown in these photos from Wikipedia:

We’ll be visiting the park today on a quick one-day tour. Granted, it’s a very short visit, but we leave tomorrow afternoon and have only a short time.  It’s sad I can’t post pictures, but I promise to do so after I’m back in Chicago in December.