Ian Strachan, Naturalist/Certified Photo Instructor
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Daily Expedition
Reports
29 Mar 2016
At Sea, towards Rio de Janeiro , 3/29/2016, National Geographic Explorer
Aboard the
National Geographic Explorer
Atlantic Isles
National Geographic Explorer departed Puerto Madryn early in the evening on Monday, March 28th. By Tuesday morning, the ship was well out at sea. While on a long crossing, there are many activities to enjoy on board.
The bridge in the early morning is a great place to slowly wake up. With Chief Mate Aaron at the helm, and Argentinian naturalists Eduardo and Santiago scouring the water for seabirds, there is much conversation to be had. On this very morning many gourds of Argentinian mate (a traditional Argentine tea) were consumed while several eyes looked through binoculars, spotting sooty and black-browed albatross. In the water, Magellanic penguins were seen, as well as a Southern sea lion and a far off whale!
After breakfast, the education begins. The first talk today was from David Barnes, our local Welsh historian. He was followed by ornithologist Santiago before lunch, who spoke about a topic dear to his heart, a certain species of grebe that has been part of an impressive conservation project. The afternoon brought a lecture by Dennis, a man of many talents who spent this particular presentation sharing his knowledge on plants. Dennis taught the guests aboard Explorer that plant biodiversity increases as temperature does, along with the relationship between variety in species and habitat. He showed photos of controlled burns, forestry decisions that have a logical backing and explained why.
For the nightly Recap, the expedition staff showed images of tangled line and spoke about fisheries in Argentina and the Southern Ocean. They discussed issues of bycatch and overfishing, finishing with a talk from expedition leader Jim Kelley on now-extinct megafauna. The night wrapped up with a delicious meal and frothy libation, early to bed and early to rise at sea.
As a young marine biologist, Alyssa Adler has had the opportunity to work as a diver in many capacities. For several years, she was a dedicated AAUS scientific diver for University of North Carolina on an offshore reef ecology project, and has partic...
One steady constant in Ian’s life has been the ocean. Born by the rocky shores of mid-coast Maine, his family repatriated to far north Queensland in Australia early on in his life where he became a dual-citizen and sparked his passion for exploring n...
This was the final day of an extraordinary voyage that has brought us some 6,762 nautical miles from Europe via Africa to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. Today we departed Punta Arenas , where the central square has a large monument depicting a proud Ferdinand Magellan surveying a new land imperiously from the shoulders of the native people, tribes of varying ethnicities that Captain FitzRoy of HMSS Beagle later called Fuegian, from their hinterland in Tierra del Fuego . We sailed the Magellan Strait , named after the first European explorer to chart his way through the maze of channels that link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . Magellan, from Portugal but sailing under the patronage of the Spanish king, took six weeks to navigate these waters, entering the strait on October 21, 1520 near Islas de Virgenes before, in the words of Pigafetta (a Venetian employed to keep a journal of the voyage), “we debouched from that strait, engulfing ourselves in the Pacific Sea.” “Pacific” was to be an enduring misnomer, as Magellan was fortunate with the weather. He had become the first European to reach and name Tierra del Fuego , after the fires that the native peoples lit everywhere, including in their canoes. On this day, 487 years ago, All Saints’ Day 1520, he passed through Estrecho de Todos los Santos, before finally, after 373 nautical miles, reaching Cape Desire on November 28th. Our use of the term Magellanic for birds and stars in the southern hemisphere also dates from this voyage. Magellanic penguins, of the kind we saw yesterday at Isla Magdalena, were well described by Reverend Francis Fletcher aboard Golden Hind anchored at Puerto Deseado in 1578: “Great store of strange birds which could not flie at all, nor yet runne so fast that they could escape us with their lives; in body they are less than a goose, and bigger than a mallard, short and thicke sette together, having no feathers, but instead thereof a certaine hard and matted downe; their beakes are not unlike the beakes of crowes, they lodge and breed upon the land, where making earthes, as the conies doe, in the ground, they lay their eggs and bring up their young; their feeding and provision to live on is the sea, where they swimme in such sort as nature may seeme to have granted them no small prerogative in swiftnesse, both to prey upon others and themselves, to escape from any others that seeke to seize upon them; and such was the infinite resort of these birds to these ilands, that in the space of a day we killed no less than 3000.” Francis Drake passed through these waters in that year becoming the first man to successfully lead an expedition of circumnavigation, since Magellan was killed on the island of Cebu in today’s Philippines before completing the voyage. Drake became a Protestant hero to rival Columbus and Magellan in the English national imagination and his patron was Queen Elizabeth, the “Virgin” Queen. As a protestant she felt under no obligation to be bound by the Catholic Treaty of Tordesillas, of which Pope Alexander VI had divided the New World between the two rival Catholic powers of Spain and Portugal. Elizabeth was eager to establish her own colonies in the New World. To strengthen her claims her advisor, Dr. John Dee, leaked various “fake news” stories claiming that the Welsh (the Tudors were a Welsh dynasty as was he) had discovered America before Columbus and that Welsh vocabulary could be found amongst native peoples in the Americas, north and south. In Drake’s widely read account of his voyage World Encompassed (1628) he describes “birds that our Welsh sailors do call penguins.” This particular example has persisted to this day in respectable dictionaries where the etymology of “penguin” is still given as Welsh, pen meaning “head” and gwyn meaning “white.” Unfortunately for Dr. Dee, who had never seen a penguin, they have black heads; the true etymology derives from the Latin word for “plump” or “fat,” for these birds were considered a delicacy by hungry sailors.
Today was a very special day. When we awoke to the beautiful and unnaturally glassy waters of Punta Arenas harbor, we knew our excursion ahead to Isla Magdalena (home of one of Chile’s favorite penguin encounters) was blessed!
We have finally left the open ocean behind. Gone are the tropics, the blue water, and the endless horizon. We awoke today to sunny but cool temperatures and to land! Most people take for granted always seeing land. But for us on this journey it has been a long time. To see distant snowcapped mountains, buildings, trees, and especially cars certainly seemed weird. Like always, the crew bedazzled us with their preparations for Halloween. Delicious pumpkin soup was a good indication of what was going on today. The pumpkin carving contest started it off, with a mind-blowing array of creativity. Soon the costumes appeared, followed by the entertainment……well, you had to be here to understand. It was too incredible to share with those of you who were not here.
