The Approach on Ushuaia, Argentina

January 28, 1994

2:40pm

I'm sitting in the Polo Lounge now, enjoying the ambiance and finishing up my note copying, postcard writing, etc. The meals have been very good, with usually two or three different choices for entry, salad/fruit, dessert, and a couple of mandatory items. Very good stuff, gourmet and local cuisine mixing well.

We've just been told that there will be a slight delay in getting into Ushuaia this afternoon. Instead of 4:00pm, they will not be letting us dock until 5:30. Big deal! I'm enjoying the time to get settled and watch the Beagle Channel go by. The clouds are low enough that they touch the tops of the mountains, which don't seem very high but must be anyway. In some places, the land meets the water abruptly, with steep cliffs and gushing waterfalls. At others, there are strips of land, even promontaries in places that reach out to the water and are covered with brownish-green terrain, very low bushes or weeds. No trees are visible anywhere. It's all bushes and grass. The water flows very swiftly through the channel, making one and two foot waves with whitecaps in the narrower places (where it's maybe a mile or half a mile wide). It's flowing back towards Chile.

My first sighting of Ushuaia, Argentina

A little while ago we passed a small town or village, with primitive-looking dwellings sprawled out along a smooth area of land decending to the water. It looked very much like a frontier town in the old west, like perhaps California looked when Los Angelos or San Francisco were settled. It's difficult to see how far back the mountains go. I assume all the way up the continent. (That is, I assume that these are the same Andes as everywhere else.)

4:00pm

I went to the Upper Deck and watched for birds with some apparent bird experts. I saw a Black-browed Albatros (I was the first to spot it!), which was really very interesting to me. I'd been hoping to see an Albatros since I heard they'd be in this area, and here the first bird I saw and recognized was one. I took a picture of an area of forest that was clearly being chopped down, probably by local farmers. There was a bridge and a road nearby, visible only through the binoculars.

Forestry activities across the channel from Ushuaia

We apparently went past Ushuaia on the far side of the channel, and then turnned around to go back toward it. While I was watching, the wind picked up incredibly. All of the dozens of people birdwatching left the deck, and I stayed there alone with my leather jacket zipped up, leather gloves on, and my pant legs whipping all around my legs and my hair flying around wildly in the wind.

Approaching Ushuaia from across the channel

I recorded some impressions about Ushuaia on tape, including an account of a gunship that left there about the time we became visible to them, and came out to meet us, then passed us by going the other way. I took a picture of that ship also.

A gunboat passing us near Ushuaia

You can wait with us to dock at Ushuaia, or return to today's table of contents.