On the Open Pacific

Chile's Juan Fernández archipelago was, for years, the home of castaway Alexander Selkirk - the real-life Robinson Crusoe.

In the course of a career spent traveling throughout the Americas, I’ve had the opportunity to visit numerous offshore Pacific islands—mostly, though, in South America, where the Juan Fernández archipelago is one of my favorite destinations in this category (I omit Rapa Nui/Easter Island here, due to its 2000 mile/3500 km distance from the mainland). I’ve set foot on many of archipelagic Chile’s islands, starting with the Chiloé group in the south.

The Farallones are about 25 nautical miles west of San Francisco.

North of the Equator, I’ve not had so much experience. One highlight was a trip to Mexico’s Isla Cedros—off the Baja California coast—where I caught a fishing-boat lift to the more distant Islas San Benito (There I saw northern elephant seals and, on the voyage back, the crew treated me to a scallop ceviche). Having spent decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve often seen the outlines of the forbidding Farallon Islands, and have always yearned to see them up close and personal.

The Farallones' rugged topography helps make them a wildlife reserve (photo, public domain)

That’s not easy, because, though the Farallones belong politically to the City and County of San Francisco, they’re desert islands off limits to the public at large. In the 19th century, collectors gathered hundreds of thousands of seabird eggs for sale on the mainland, and US Navy and Coast Guard long kept a presence, but today the archipelago is under protection of US Fish and Wildlife Service as the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Only research biologists have access to the islands themselves, where several buildings remain from their previous incarnations.

Once a naval and coast guard base, the Farallones now host research biologists.

Earlier this month, though, we booked a day tour to the islands with Álvaro’s Adventures, from Pillar Point Harbor at Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. Álvaro Jaramillo, whom I’ve known for some years, lives there but also leads birding trips to Argentina and Chile, where I usually work. This, though, was an opportunity to see something new.

Nesting murres and guano cover much of the rugged Farallones terrain.

Many, if not most, of the other passengers were enthusiastic birders who braved the rough seas in hopes of expanding their lifelists—though some were repeat customers. I’m only a casual birder, but the sight of islands covered with birds and guano reminds me of my experiences in the penguin-rich South Atlantic, and the presence of buildings on remote islands reminded me—on a midsummer’s day that was no less chilly than the Strait of Magellan—of structures in Tierra del Fuego. It’s also whale-watching season, though we didn’t nearly as close to the grays and humpbacks here as I have in antipodean destinations like Península Valdés (where it’s now breeding season for right whales) and Isla Carlos III (summer feeding grounds for southern humpbacks). The Farallones are also a place to spot great white sharks, though July’s a little too early for that.

Unfortunately, at the Farallones we never so close to the whales as I was to this southern humpback in the Strait of Magellan.

Later this year and early next year, I should get the chance to revisit some of my South American islands, but there’s one notable omission on my offshore lifelist. I’d really like the chance to visit Chile’s Isla Mocha, off the coast of the Araucanía region. Nearly half of it’s a national reserve and, though it might not complete my insular aspirations, it would be a major step forward.

Chile's Isla Mocha is on my wishlist, even if it won't look the way it did to 16th-century Dutch pirates.

Black-Browed Albatross Stages Comeback; Plus, Five-Star Falklands?

In the course of more than a year in the Falkland Islands, from January 1986 through February 1987, I grew to adore the place. Just four years earlier, it had been the site of brief but contentious conflict when Argentina’s vicious military dictatorship invaded and occupied them on the basis of an ambiguous 19th-century territorial claim, and held them for 74 days before being dislodged by a British task force. During those ten weeks, the territory changed from a state without police – local cops did not even carry firearms – to a police state that threatened them and their property.

My own stay, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship, gave me plenty of time to get to know the islands, which were much more than just a war zone – they are also a great biosphere reserve and home to a local population who made us feel at home – in fact, several of them even shared their homes with us, despite my wife’s suspect Argentine nationality (she traveled there on her US passport, as Argentines passports were then unacceptable to local authorities).

Over our 13 months, we enjoyed observing enormous amounts of wildlife in what felt like a sub-Antarctic Galápagos, at least in the sense that the countless birds and numerous marine mammals were virtually fearless – it was easy to approach penguins and other birds, not to mention marine mammals such as southern elephant seals, for photographs. I now have thousands of photos of Falklands fauna, many of them taken on succeeding trips as I have updated my Moon Handbook to Patagonia.

The difference, of course, is that the Galápagos’ species diversity is far greater; the Falklands have fewer species, but greater numbers of individuals in sprawling shoreline colonies. Five different species of penguins breed in the Islands, with occasional visitors as well, but they’re not my favorite birds here.

Rather, I prefer the black-browed albatross (pictured above), with its almost porcelain beauty, which is easiest to see and approach on Saunders Island, one of the archipelago’s largest islands after East and West Falkland. At The Rookery, near the sandy isthmus called The Neck that virtually separates Saunders in two, these curious birds warily waddle up to visitors who take a seat nearby.

That’s why I was encouraged to read that the species, which Falklanders call the “mollymawk,” is recovering from a population decline that had placed it on the IUCN endangered species list because long-line fishing had contributed to high mortality rates. Seventy percent of the species breeds in the islands, though there are also substantial numbers on South Georgia (which, unfortunately, I have never been able to visit). According to local conservationist Sally Poncet, whom I know fairly well, South Georgia mollymawk numbers have not recovered in the way Falklands populations have.

Five-Star Falklands?

Meanwhile, the new director of Falkland Islands Tourism, Tony Mason (whom I have never met, as he only recently took over the job) has suggested that the Islands are ready for their first five-star hotel. At the moment, accommodations in the capital of Stanley consist mostly of cozy B&Bs plus the Malvina House Hotel (pictured below), which would be good accommodations almost anywhere. Nearly all the Islands’ tourism is cruise-ship based and, when things get crowded in town, beds can be hard to come by (on a handful of occasions when high seas and winds have made it impossible for cruise passengers to return to their vessels, local authorities have had to appeal to residents to open their spare rooms to the temporarily stranded).

The question is whether a country whose total population is barely 3,000 (of whom roughly 2,000 reside in the capital) can justify the construction and operation of a facility that will sit virtually empty about half the year (the wildlife season runs from September to March or April). Given the limited and precarious overseas communications (weekly flights from Chile, depending on a capricious Argentine foreign policy, and two or three charters a month from the Brize Norton, Oxfordshire), devoting limited resources to such a project would seem debatable. Even the most well-to-do sightseers and wildlife-watchers would probably only stay there at the beginning and the end of their visits. Maintaining that level of service in a destination with a limited labor force would appear to be a real challenge.

Rocky Roads, Ashy Skies & Fuegian Kings

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won’t return to South America until late January or early February, but that doesn’t mean a lack about Argentina, Chile, and the rest of the Southern Cone. Álvaro Jaramillo, whose birding guide to Chile I recently reviewed, has passed on some very useful information from his recent trip there.

The Road to Lauca

Most of Álvaro's updated information comes from Parque Nacional Lauca (pictured above) and vicinity, where I spent most of a year doing my M.A. fieldwork in the 1980s. This is an area where, unfortunately, the mining industry also has a major presence; in gateway village of Putre (pictured below), the Hotel Las Vicuñas is now open only to mining personnel. That said, Álvaro reports, “[T]here are two new hotels in town: Hotel Q'antati (which I stayed in), great rooms, heating, breakfast but no lunch/dinner. The Chakana Mountain Lodge I saw from a distance and it looked nice, but I did not see it up close. “

The route up to Lauca, though, “is a mess. There is road construction going on from the army base [near Putre] to Chucuyo, with many delays, dust, trucks. The experience there was a nightmare this year. The company that is doing it (Kodama) is clueless unfortunately, and they are being critiqued from all sides on their work. While we were there, a head-on collision occurred on a one-lane stretch they were working on; one man died. Much of this road construction is to get it up to the level that it can take heavy truck traffic, which is expected to increase greatly from mining operations in the area.” Barbara Knapton of Alto Andino Nature Tours, who lives in Putre, says the delays have made it difficult to reach and return from the park; I will have more on the topic in the near future.

The Kings of Tierra del Fuego

For birders, the big news comes from Tierra del Fuego (on the right half of the NASA image above). On the Chilean side of the island, just across the Strait of Magellan from the city of Punta Arenas, “[T]here is now an area on Bahía Inútil [“Useless Bay,” in English], where it is possible to see a flock of loafing king penguins. I have not been there yet, but am excited at the possibility to see this superb creature at such an accessible location.” While this would still mean a full-day excursion from Punta Arenas, kings rarely appear so close to significant population centers – I myself have seen many on the Falkland Islands (the one below occupies part of a mixed colony with gentoos), but never on the South American continent or Tierra del Fuego.

Flying the Ashy Skies

Finally, Álvaro adds a word for those flying south from Santiago or Buenos Aires. His flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas “had to skip the traditional stop over at Puerto Montt because of the smoking Puyehue (Caulle) Volcano, and then farther south on the flight we could see smoking Hudson doing its thing! Two smoking volcanoes on one flight was a first for me; on that day (early November) Puyehue was definitely more active than Hudson. I would advise tourists to think about backup plans if they are planning on flying to Puerto Montt during this season if Puyehue increases activity once again. I heard of flight cancellations to Temuco in late October as well. The wind direction is prevailing from the West, creating a greater problem in Argentina, but there are enough local wind shifts that one is not always in the safe zone in Chile.” The NASA satellite image above, taken in July, indicates the pattern of ash distribution.

Moon Patagonia – On the Road Again!

Well, just down the road, really. Earlier this month, an attack of bronchitis caused me to postpone a promotional digital slide presentation at REI Fremont, 43962 Fremont Blvd., Fremont, CA 94538, tel. 510/651-0305. We have rescheduled the event, for this coming Tuesday, November 29, at 7 p.m. According to my doctor, I am longer contagious.