Chilean Glaciers
After rounding Cape Horn, we cruised the Beagle Channel, a 150 mile strait connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is named after the British ship HMS Beagle which surveyed the coast of South America between 1826 and 1830. The ship returned in 1833 to continue its work with Charles Darwin aboard as a naturalist. Beagle Channel meanders through Parque National Alberto de Agostini. Countless small islands form one of the most scenic archipelagos in the world. We are seeing this untouched wilderness much as Ferdinand Magellan, Charles Darwin and other early explorers did centuries before us. Soaring snow capped peaks form the corridors for the fjords that are heralded as some of the most rugged and untamed places on earth. Compare the size of the fishing trawler (in the lower left) to the height of the peaks forming this fjord. We entered a region of the strait known as Glacier Alley, home to the massive Darwin ice field. It creates n...