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So where were we?
Ah yes...
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'Ata'Ata is currently travelling between Puerto Williams, the "southernmost village in the world", at the southern tip of Chile and the South American continent, and Ushuaia, the "southernmost city in the world", in Argentina, almost opposite on the other side of the Beagle Channel. This is the compromise found by two rival brothers, now the youngest generations of the adorable people of these two magnificent neighboring countries have ended up finding smarter ways to fight each other, using advertising slogans rather than cannons, as their elders did!
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Oops...
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...it's really winter!
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Here, at the end of the world, in the middle of winter, it is frigid! After living in Polynesia and regally enjoying its almost unreal postcard landscapes and a climate that's so easy to live in, I sometimes wonder what fly stung me to freeze my feet here: it's sometimes just above 0° C (32° F) in the cabin in the morning, even with the heater! But the scenery is magical, people are charming and these sometimes rough weather conditions are the price to pay to sail in the magical wildness of the Patagonian Chammels and Tierra del Fuego and to discover the myths that are the Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel, Cape Horn ...
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On the way to having the chance to navigate these waters, I have achieved two other old dreams of mine: making the longest non-stop crossing that can be made on our globe - accross the South Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Chile in the roaring forties; and then making the passage to Nemo Point, which is the point of our world furthest from any land, where there is ... nothing, not even navigation lines, no ships. The nearest human beings are those of the ISS space station, which flies a few hundred kilometers above, in space, and only large pelagic animals, as well as albatrosses and petrels can be met there. The now old, singlehanded sailor could only feel at home... and had great fun by planting the Swiss flag there, just over 4000 meters deep!
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Photo Denis Daolio
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At the end of Tierra del Fuego, the Beagle Channel borders Argentina in the north and Chile in the south, with Ushuaia and Puerto Williams on either side. Sixty miles to the south is Cape Horn and its archipelago Wollaston, Chileans...
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