Photo Essay: Sailing 12,000 Miles from Rhode Island to Patagonia

When we reached the waters of Tierra del Fuego, the charts became more familiar. The Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the dreaded Drake Passage, all infamous and legendary, lay ahead of us.

Both the Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel offer a route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, allowing for a passage free from the rough and perilous seas of the Drake. We headed east into the Strait of Magellan, Patagonia to the north of us and Tierra del Fuego to the south, watching our view of the Pacific shrink as we sailed deeper into the valleys of the strait.

Most days, winds of 30-40 knots propelled us to a new anchorage, each more remote than the last. We spent our free time wandering on land to shake out our sea legs. The thick, almost impenetrable rainforest slowed our momentum, forcing us to take a moment between each step to look around. Below our feet a diversity of mosses grew thick and vibrant, a cushion for each footprint. The lenga, cypress, and coigue trees that surrounded the waters edge, clinging to the steep faces of the fjord, remained silent observers to the explorers that came before. The Selk’Nam, the indigenous of Tierra del Fuego, Magellan, Darwin, and countless others have all passed by the same ancient fauna.

At the foot of glaciers, I felt pangs of guilt. Each turn of the throttle, every plane ride, and each burger, culminated before me in the form of a melting glacier. Each crack of ice released bits of air, untouched and undisturbed for centuries, only to be released into a changed world.

Source: https://fieldmag.herokuapp.com/articles/rhode-island-to-cape-horn-sailing