Beagle Channel

The Beagle Channel splits the map in a way that looks almost arbitrary from above — a narrow strait separating Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego from Chile’s Navarino Island, named for the ship that carried Charles Darwin along this coast in the 1830s. From the deck of the boat we boarded in Ushuaia’s harbor, none of that history mattered nearly as much as the immediate fact of the place: mountains dropping straight into cold water on both sides, the wind sharp enough to make conversation an effort, and a silence out on the water that felt older than any of the names attached to it.

Our first stop was Isla de los Lobos, a low rocky islet crowded with South American sea lions hauled out in sprawling, bellowing piles. The noise reached us before we’d fully arrived — that specific chorus of roars and grunts that sea lion colonies produce, somewhere between a barnyard and a riot. Younger males postured at the water’s edge, throwing their weight around in short, exhausting bursts, while the larger bulls mostly ignored them from the rocks above. Lia had her camera up the entire approach and still put it down halfway through, just to watch. Some things don’t improve through a viewfinder.

The boat continued to Isla Martillo, home to a colony of Magellanic penguins and, depending on the season, a smaller population of gentoos — a rare enough combination that the island draws people specifically for it. We were permitted ashore for a walk among the burrows, staying on marked paths while the penguins went about business that had nothing to do with us: waddling to and from the water, arguing over nesting sites, standing in small groups facing the wind like commuters at a bus stop. It’s a strange, comic thing to watch an animal so awkward on land move with such total confidence the moment it hits the water, vanishing in a streak that bore no resemblance to the creature standing on the beach thirty seconds earlier.

The Les Eclaireurs lighthouse came last, a red-and-white tower standing alone on its own small islet, often billed as the “lighthouse at the end of the world” even though, as more than one Ushuaia local was quick to correct us, the actual southernmost lighthouse sits further east on Isla de los Estados and is considerably less photogenic to reach. I appreciated the honesty. Les Eclaireurs earns its fame regardless — a working navigational light, unmanned since the 1970s, standing sentinel over a channel that has swallowed more than a few ships over the centuries. Cormorants had colonized nearly every ledge of the tower itself, turning a functional piece of maritime infrastructure into an unplanned bird sanctuary. On clear days, the crew told us, you can see the glaciated peaks of the Darwin Range to the south, marking the Chilean border. We didn’t get that particular clarity, but the channel gave us plenty else to look at on the way back.

When to go: November through March, when boat excursions run most frequently and the penguin colonies are active — Magellanic penguins nest here roughly October through April, so shoulder-season visits still catch them. Dress far warmer than the air temperature suggests; the wind on open water cuts through anything short of a proper shell.