By Mark Corti

I’ve always been drawn to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Darwin described it has having a, “Mysterious grandeur of mountain behind mountain, with deep intervening valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest … gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet, [the climate] seems blacker than anywhere else.” It clings to the very bottom of South America, facing down the Southern Ocean and across to Antarctica and it’s one of the wildest and least-hospitable places on earth.

Shout outs
With thanks to Captain Cath Hew, First Mate Greg Scamporlino, and crew Don, Paddy & Eva.
www.icebird
expeditions.com/
www.facebook.com/
antarcticsailing/

Patagonia, Chile… and Tierra del Fuego, argentina

Two of the wildest and least-hospitable places on earth…

It’s also one of the most dramatic, with jagged peaks tearing at the clouds, blue-grey glaciers tumbling stop-motion headlong into deep, dark waters, and everywhere waterfalls plunging, free-falling down mountainsides to the sea. The climate hasn’t changed much from Darwin’s time, with a typical summer’s day including rain, snow, 30-knot winds and single-digit temperatures – sometimes all at once.

I, however, was currently viewing it over a glass of wine from the cosy cabin of Icebird, a sailboat outfitted for expedition support work in the Southern Ocean. I felt I’d earned the wine – we’d had a long sail in poor visibility, in an area where the charts weren’t merely sketchy, but actually wrong – misaligned with the terrain by about a mile and a half. In the narrow channels and fjords through which we’d been navigating, it had made for a tense afternoon of helming and watch keeping.

We were currently secured by a spider’s web of shore lines to the various rocky islets that protected our anchorage – strong winds were forecast overnight, so we didn’t want to take chances with the anchor dragging. Then once we’d anchored – a task transformed into a mission by driving snow – we’d unlashed the kayaks from their fastenings and towed them to a nearby beach. This was the first time they’d been used since last season, and there was some minor maintenance required to bring them up to scratch – tightening deck lines, replacing bungies, re-fitting and adjusting the rudders.

Aching shoulders

It was easier to do it on the beach, where we could spread out and move around, rather than the busy deck of the yacht. This far south, the sun sets late and it was gone 21.00 by the time we climbed into the zodiac and returned to the Icebird, the whine of the little outboard echoing back and forth across the silent bay. My shoulders were aching from pulling miles of mooring lines, my fingers frozen from working with the steel multi-tools we’d been using on the kayaks, and to top it off I’d just discovered that I’d forgotten to zip up the pockets of my jacket and they were filled with slowly-melting snow.

I reached for the bottle and poured myself another glass of wine.

The next day dawned still and overcast, with a thick blanket of cloud obscuring the peaks which crowded the skyline all around. The driving snow overnight had monochromed the scenery – deep water, black rocks, grey sky, all rimed white with fresh snow. The wind had dropped, and the landscape reflected in the dark mirror of the water like a Japanese ink drawing.

Gnarled trees, twisted by the relentless winds, clung tenaciously to cracks in the steep cliffs; the snow, sprayed by the wind, filled the crevices in the bark and dusted the foliage, lining everything in white. It was – and I appreciate this is an over-used cliché – a fairytale, winter-wonderland scene.

We dragged the kayaks out from their blanket of snow on the beach and went exploring. This was our first paddle together, so we took the opportunity of flat, sheltered water to have a chat and discuss how we were going to journey together as a group. We were a mixed-ability bunch, so it made sense to paddle in a fairly structured way, with clear roles and responsibilities, and the more experienced paddlers buddying with the less-confident ones.

a leisurely pace

We didn’t have a particular objective for the day other than to stretch out the paddling muscles and explore this dramatic fjord, so we set a leisurely pace, cruising along the rocky shoreline and watching pairs of flightless steamer ducks splash across the water. I hadn’t seen these before, and I was captivated – they neither fly nor paddle like the mallards I’m used to, but instead flail their broad feet along the surface of the water, pushing their heavy bodies up on the plane and leaving behind a wake like a jetboat – or, as I guess the early explorers noted, like a paddle-steamer going flat out. It looks incredibly inefficient, but they can keep it up for surprising distances – certainly enough to escape from overly-inquisitive sea kayakers!

We paddled on, penetrating deep into the forks of the aptly (if unimaginatively) named Caleta Horquilla (Forked Creek). A few small chunks of ice appeared, drifting lazily on the outgoing tide, and as we rounded the point we saw the source: a gorgeous two-colour glacier, sweeping into the sea from a saddle between double peaks. As it reached the water, a rocky bluff stood in its path, forcing the glacier to flow around it.

electric blue

On one side of the bluff, the glacier was an electric blue, the all-around glare of the overcast sky making it glow with an otherworldly light. Groans and rumbles came from beneath it, with an occasional sharp retort as huge blocks of ice cracked and fractured under the immense pressure, sending cascades of ice crashing into the fjord. On the other side of the bluff, the glacier was grey, almost black in places.

A casual glance dismissed it as moraine, the gravelly detritus that glaciers push ahead of themselves, the fragmented remains of crushed mountains. However, a second glance revealed it for what it was: old ice, smoothed and sculpted by wind and sun and covered by a layer of black dust. It was hard not to see this branch of the glacier as dead – a static, slowly-decaying contrast to the noisy animation of its sibling.

We drifted closer, awestruck by the power of nature, which had carved and was still carving this landscape from the living rock. The rocky bluff, which split the glacier was, in geological terms, a temporary aberration, soon to be milled to powder by the inexorable grindstone of the ice.

As we paddled back to the yacht after the day’s exploration, the stillness was broken by the chugga-chugga of an ancient marine diesel. A brightly-painted wooden fishing boat hove into view, caparisoned with ropes and crab pots and all the paraphernalia of a Chilean working boat. This was excellent news indeed: crab fisherman are usually up for a bit of friendly bartering and happy to trade a few boxes of wine for a basket of fresh crab.

ocean delicacy

Fuegian king crab – called centollo by the locals – is a true ocean delicacy, but most of it goes to the US and Asia, and it’s seldom seen in Europe. Once they’d anchored and sorted themselves out, we headed over in the Zodiac, clutching a bottle of rum and a box of local red. Crab fishermen in this part of the world lead a tough life, the three-man crew staying at sea for the entire four-month season in their tiny wooden boats, their only outside contact a weekly resupply visit from the mothership. Consequently, they’re always happy to see some new faces, and sure enough, we were greeted with open arms and wide smiles (In fact, these particular fishermen invited us to come out and experience a day working on a crab-fishing boat, which was an adventure all of its own – but this is supposed to be a story about kayaking, so it will have to wait!).

In short order, there was a pile of crabs clambering about in the bottom of our dinghy, and we headed back to the Icebird for one of the more memorable meals of the trip – with wine, obviously!

The next day we moved on, chasing a pod of dolphins down the fjord as they cavorted and spun on our bow. We dropped the kayaks in the water and had a short paddle around the new bay.

Caracaras – mid-sized birds of prey endemic to the area – patrolled the shoreline, quarrelling noisily with Magallenic and kelp geese for scraps left by the retreating tide. A Patagonian ringed kingfisher perched on a branch, regularly diving into the shallows and returning with wriggling silver fish in its beak. Overhead, a pair of condors circled slowly back down to their nest, high on an inaccessible cliff ledge.

uniformly spectacular

This set the pattern for the next few weeks. Sail to a new, gorgeous anchorage; explore the area, by kayak and on foot; and move on elsewhere. The scenery was uniformly spectacular, the weather reliably changeable. On one occasion, exploring the head of a dramatic fjord in the kayaks on a gloriously-sunny day, a katabatic wind sprang up out of nowhere, pushing us back towards the open channel.

The ice, which had been a loose brash through which we’d paddled without issue, bunched together and compressed into a solid pack as it was forced through a constriction in the channel. Forward progress was impossible, and even getting a paddle in the water required multiple attempts. A capsize would have been a disaster. We rafted together, shivering as the wind pushed us, embedded in the ice pack, out towards more-open water. Once through the constriction, the ice loosened and we broke free, surfing down the sudden short chop with a 30-knot wind on our tails, back to the welcome shelter of the Icebird.

The speed at which the situation had changed – it took less than five minutes to change from a glassy-smooth blue-sky paddle, abstract ice sculptures reflecting serenely in the mirrored surface of the fjord, to a challenging battle through a dense icepack in 30-knot winds – took even the experienced paddlers among us completely by surprise.

really tough

This was a different kind of sea kayak trip to others I’ve done, which have primarily been self-supported, multi-day journeys. And you can travel like that in Patagonia – several people have, undertaking epic and arduous trips in this astonishing landscape. But it’s tough – really tough – and I’m not sure enjoyable. I’ve paddled in places where the environment brings challenge – the always-wet temperate rainforests of western Canada, the icy shorelines of Antarctica – but the difficulties of camping here in Tierra del Fuego

springy, small-leaved plants

We saw hardly a square foot of flat land the whole time we were there – the mountains fall directly into the ocean, and you’re often in 50 metres of water only a short distance offshore. Where the land wasn’t rock, glacier or impenetrable forest, it was covered in a deep layer of springy, small-leaved plants, which acted as a sponge for the meltwater pouring constantly off the hills. Every step squeezed pints of water from it, often flowing over the tops of hiking boots. You certainly could camp on it – it was soft enough for comfort – but you’d need to be really sure your groundsheet was totally waterproof. You would be camping in several inches of water at all times, and you’d be soaked underfoot as soon as you left the tent.

It wouldn’t be impossible to camp, but the terrain would certainly reduce the enjoyment. Coupled with the scarcity of landing spots, the unpredictability of the weather and the extreme local wind effects, having a mothership as a base made a lot of sense. You could still do challenging paddles in a variety of conditions, but with the safety net of a decent meal and warm bed waiting for you at the end of the day.

One of the most memorable paddles was in Seno Chico. We’d moored the yacht in a steep-sided bay, little more than a deep crack in the surrounding cliffs. The sun was shining, and the rocks – a warm orange gritstone rather than the forbidding black peaks we’d seen hitherto – glowed under a cloudless blue sky. The ships’ pilot’s guide to the area suggests a spectacular glacier lay in the eastern arm of the fjord, only accessible by small boat due to a ridge of glacial moraine across the entrance that prevented deeper-draft vessels from navigating to it.

It seemed on paper like a perfect objective for a half-day paddle – around twelve kilometres there and back. And so it proved. As we paddled, mid-size chunks of glacier floated past us in stately procession. The water was a deep turquoise under the sky, still enough to reflect the cliffs stretching above. Gushing waterfalls plunged down them, smashing on rocks in clouds of spray. At the head of the valley, a majestic ice-blue glacier groaned and creaked as the sun began to warm it.

As we neared the glacier, the walls closed in until they were no more than 50 metres apart, the cracks and booms from the glacier echoing back and forth between them. At our approach, a colony of blue-eyed Imperial shags – several hundred pairs at least – took to the air, leaving their rocky ledges and swirled over our heads in a raucous, squawking blizzard. It was an unforgettable wildlife moment, against a stunning landscape.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and all too soon we found ourselves sailing towards Ushuaia, our final destination. Tides necessitated an early start, and so we sailed out of the dark and into the sunrise down the Beagle Channel, the sky changing from salmon-pink to orange against the sails as the sun crept up and over the endless march of angular peaks which line the channel. Truly the mysterious grandeur of mountain behind mountain. I couldn’t have put it better myself.