There are still places in this world where you stand in awe.
Where there is an aura of solemnity.
The Beagle Channel is one of them - and it is something you don't expect when you just around the corner from Cape Horn.
Apart from its stark beauty, what struck me about it was its solemn stillness.
Glaciers and ice make little sound.
New-fold mountains sleep, their great stubbled chins pointed skywards while above them condors the size of worker bees wheel in effortless in silent circles.
A thousand streams and waterfalls glisten as they slip relentlessly over honed rock faces only to disappear in the wooded banks below.
Penguins and occasional whales grace the water, while on the scattered rocky outcrops, seals wallow unperturbed while on tiny islands innumerable cormorants hold out their flaccid wings to dry.
Beneath the crystal waters, tall weeds wave their golden fronds as the small boat passes above them leaving barely a ripple on the surface.

The Beagle Channel stretches 120 miles long and two miles wide, and Charles Darwin likened it to the valley of Scotland's Lockness.
In his words:
"The lofty mountains rise to a height of 3,000 and 4,000 feet%u2026covered by a wide mantle of perpetual snow, and numerous cascades pour their waters through the woods, into the narrow channel below. In many parts, magnificent glaciers extend from the mountainside to the water's edge. It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of there glaciers and the dead white of the upper expanse of snow." (The Voyage of the HMS Beagle).

The Channel is probably unchanged since the time HMS Beagle made its first passage in the 1830s and it will be that same scene which will greet the replica ship when she sails south in a few years time.

Thanks to Peter Grath, I have just learned of the Beagle Project Pembrokeshire,
Zoologist, Peter, and David Lort-Phillips director of the Darwin Centre for Biology and Medicine in Wales are co-founders of the project to build a replica of the Beagle.
I will be posting more about the project but you can find out about it at http://www.beagleproject.com

.....coming

article to come .....

This is an Otway Sound Penquin out from Punta Arenas.
The penguins I caught on film on riding on icebergs were on the movie camera - sorry folks.

Europa is a square rigged ship run by Victory Cruises.
She sails out of Usuaia on Tierra del Fuego and she is on my wish list.
Would love to sail on her.

Photo from the net

The entrance to Deception island - a volcanic caldera - still active - is only about 500 yards agross.
Somewhere not far below the water is Raven Rock - a jagged rock which could easily tear the bottom out of an unsuspection ship.

As the ice melts form the bergs it takes on the most remarkable shapes and appearances. This one looked at first looked like a turtle then a lizard.
It's magic!

You don't have to look far for growlers!

Unidentified yacht at Anchor in Deception Island close to the Antarctic Circle.
No that is not a black and white photo though it looks like it.
And those are not clouds in the background.
That's snow on black volcanic ash inside the caldera.
Eerie!

The mountains are razor tipped and inhospitable.
Yet beautiful beyond description!