Drake Passage/Ushuaia

We headed home across the infamous Drake Passage with warnings of potential stormy weather with 100km/hr winds and 9m waves! However the captain powered across and we escaped the worst and reached the safety of the Beagle Channel early on the 19th. However this meant we had to wait moored off shore for two days. So a shore excursion was organised on the 20th to a local lake via stops at lookouts - beautiful valleys and beech forests along the way. Unfortunately beavers from Canada were introduced in the early 20th C with the intention of starting a fur trade down here - problem was it’s not as cold here as Canada so the the beavers fur was shorter and unsuitable for commercial use. So they just let the 50 pairs of beavers go in the wild! Now there are 120,000 beavers who can chop down a 200 yr old beech tree overnight plus their dams form small lagoons that saturate the roots of the native trees and they die - so large areas of dead trees everywhere - another example of introducing species that ends up a disaster!
We had a traditional Argentinian lunch of slow cooked whole lamb - huge slabs of meat and potatoes - and then a final night on the boat.
An amazing trip and now off to Patagonia!Read more