Ushuaia Port (Photo: Geert Schneider)

On 3rd December, after 25 days of sailing and 1942 nautical miles, the sailboat Antarktikos entered the port of Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. The 36-foot (11m) vessel had completed the first part of its mission, to sail from Buenos Aires to Antarctica. Preparations for the second leg, to Antarctica and back, are now in full flow. On 7th January 2012, the Antarktikos and its crew will embark for the south, a voyage that is only for the stout hearted. Navigators consider sailing to Antarctica to be equivalent to scaling Everest for mountain climbers.

Tourism to Antarctica during the 2010-11 season capped at 19,445 visitors, down from the previous year’s tally at 33,824 with the overwhelming majority arriving from the US (6,148), Australia (2,400) then Germany (1,800) and the UK (1,200). That might seem like a lot until you compare it to the amount of tourists in Buenos Aires, which for the same three-month period exceeded 650,000 visitors. Out of the 19,000 or so that visited Antarctica last season, only a few hundred sailed there, and only a fraction of those were private vessels. If and when the Antarktikos returns, it will be only the third Argentine vessel to have made the trip.

It’s not hard to see why so few make the attempt. Antarctica is the coldest, highest, windiest, driest, and iciest continent on earth. But the real trouble is getting there.

Magellan et al.

In 1519, a Spanish expedition counting five ships headed by Ferdinand Magellan and seeking to find a route to the Pacific, sailed from Spain and then down the east coast of South America. On 21st October 1520, Magellan found a promising opening and sent his two best ships to explore. Five days later they had returned reporting that although they had not reached the end of the passage, the water was brine and would rise and fall with the tides. It was enough.

Drake Passage (Photo: Chanda Keefe)

Finally, on 28th November, 1520, after navigating the 373 mile canal through Patagonia, three of Magellan’s ships reached the Pacific. At parallel 52, the Straits of Magellan are well past the ‘Roaring Forties’, (the trade winds between the 40th to 50th parallels) and into the ‘Furious Fifties’. Magellan judged (wisely) that his ships might not survive the harsh climatic conditions that afflict the planet at the higher latitudes.

In 1525, Francisco de Hoces was blown south to the 56th parallel and claimed to have seen what he called, ‘Land’s End,’ but which later received the name Cape Horn from a later Dutch expedition. In 1578, Francis Drake was blown south on the Pacific side of the Straits of Magellan and found open water, in reality part of the Southern Ocean, but named the Drake Passage in the area between Cape Horn and Antarctica. The fact that Antarctica wasn’t discovered until 1820 despite the relatively short length of the Drake Passage (400 miles) demonstrates how difficult it was to cross. In fact, a sailor was deemed ‘able-bodied’ only after he had made the Cape Horn crossing in the typical eastbound direction, at which time he was given the right to wear an earring (in the left ear which passed closest to the Horn).

Today, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) offers these special recommendations for private yachts:

• Be prepared for extreme weather conditions. You, and your vessel must be prepared for extreme weather conditions: a knockdown, storm-force winds, cold, drifting ice and bad anchorages. Bad weather and strong winds can hit hard and fast, with little warning.
• Be completely self-sufficient. Do not expect rescue, outside assistance, fuel, or other supplies. Make sure you are capable of sustaining full-speed groundings, loss of engine, propeller, steering, rigging/mast, anchor, etc. without outside assistance. Remember to carry sufficient tools and knowledge to make your own repairs
• Stay Safe. Remember the weather can change in just a few minutes in Antarctica and ice can drift in. Use anchor watches while onboard and, when going ashore, take shelter and emergency supplies in case you cannot return to the yacht. Please do not take anything from bases or emergency huts, except in a life-threatening emergency. Many of the ice fields and glaciers are crevassed and dangerous to cross without the correct skills and equipment. Icebergs and ice cliffs can collapse with no warning, swamping vessels. Keep a respectful distance.

Clearly, not much has changed since Magellan and Drake sailed these waters.

Blood and Swash

This lighthouse on Isla de los Estados no longer exists, only a replica at Ushuaia

Some facts are easily ascertained: commerce and corsairs go together, and the southern seas were afflicted equally despite the rough climatic conditions. While one authority approved and condoned those actions from which it benefited, the same actions would be judged illegal by others. Sir Francis Drake is just one example of a pirate that plagued this area. According to Norman Davies, Oxford don, Francis Drake plundered the Spanish Main (which included the Americas) “under licence from the English queen, and was knighted for his services. But when others behaved likewise, they were denounced in England as savages…in the eyes of his compatriots, Drake was ‘admiral’, but in Spanish eyes, he was an international criminal.”

Although renowned French author, Jules Verne, himself never travelled to Isla de los Estados, it is clear that tales of piracy and plunder reached even his cosmopolitan ears. In 1901 Verne finished writing ‘The Lighthouse at the End of the World’ (published posthumously in 1905) the plot of which is based on imaginary events occurring on the Argentine island Isla de los Estados (discovered in 1615) off the southeastern coast of Tierra de Fuego. At the time of his writing, the lucrative trade routes around the southern coasts of South America were still functional, and the fictional plot, involving pirates, was entirely believable. The lighthouse still stands; its official name is San Juan de Salvamento, although the original one commissioned in 1884 is out of order. Nowadays few people could attest to the feasibility of the plot. With the inauguration of the Panama Canal in 1914, commercial sailing round Cape Horn was made obsolete as maritime traffic opted for the quicker and safer route through the Canal, thus cutting navigational times and costs.

Today the light is automatic and the island, commonly called ‘Ghost Island’ due to the prevailing mists that hide its coasts, is host to a very small naval base only. But thanks to Jules Verne, and a 1971 film starring Kirk Douglas (definitely NOT a children’s film), the lighthouse and the island retains its mystique. The crew of the Antarktikos packed a rifle for purposes of defense.

Navegare necesse est

The challenge. The romance. Loyalty. Patriotism. A new career as sailboat tour operators. Captains Luis Campi and Osvaldo Mauro give a variety of reasons when they try to express why they they want to achieve the “Everest of sailing”. The reality is that over a period of nine years, they have sunk their personal and professional lives, as well as their emotional and financial investments into this project. And now they are reaping the results of their efforts, incomprehensible as it may seem.

Captains Osvaldo Mauro and Luis Campi on board the Antarktikos

Anyone can understand the attraction of achieving a long sought-for goal. The glamour of following in Magellan’s and Drake’s wake is also obvious. But what might be more difficult to follow is the emotional and civic importance that Argentines of a certain generation give to their country and its territorial rights/claims. Sailing north, towards Brazil, the equator, and the Caribbean, never needs to be explained; everybody wants to go there. But to the south? To bad weather and troubled seas, to sparsely populated areas and even more unpredictable, extreme conditions? There are not many takers for that trip. For most people — including many Argentines – Argentina can be summed up in the city of Buenos Aires, but for some, their territory and its history is a part of who they are. Therefore this sort of voyage is in reality a trip of self-discovery, of not just territorial assimilation but of psychological recognition. Argentines are not just the urbane charmers of the capital; they are also the remote beauties of Patagonia and inconsolable isolation of Tierra de Fuego.

To Sail or Not to Sail

Out of the original crew that set sail from Buenos Aires on 7th November, only one, Captain Osvaldo Mauro, will continue to Antarctica in January. The reasons for the crew’s departure are as diverse as are his reasons for continuing, some crewmembers citing professional or personal commitments, others mentioning simply that their place is elsewhere. In Mauro’s own words: “I feel sad for myself and for this dream that will no longer be the same, but nonetheless I will continue with the same objectives and fulfilling the pre-established dates.” To do so, he must reform his crew, not an easy task at this stage of the game. It would seem that the extreme desolation which is Antarctica reaches beyond its mere geographical boundaries.

To be continued…