The Beagle Channel

A dramatic afternoon around the lighthouse
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[Click the pictures to see, they explain a lot more than I can here]

The main thing to do here in Ushuaia is to take a trip out in a small boat and see the Beagle Channel, the glacial strait that was used to reach where Ushuaia is now.

People used to live naked all year round, covered in seal fat

Doesn't sound like like much fun, but within minutes of leaving the harbour our boat was being followed by tens of jumping, diving fur seals trying to keep up.

The low winter sun sillohuettes the cormorants
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We then headed out around the old seal blubber-powered lighthouse. It was a cold day with thin light, but the sun was breaking through in places which made for some great photos.

We then passed close by a cormerant population and a outcrop that was home to lots of seals, before stopping on an island where indidgenous people lived naked all year round, 'cept for a small cloth over their shoulder and ocering themselves in seal fat to keep warm. We talk a quick walk in their island, and within minutes we were all freezing with the chill wind, so how they survived I'll never know.

Seal Central
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Ironically, what killed them off was us Westerners, who arrived (including Darwin) with new diseases and also made them wear clothes, which got wet quick and pretty much wiped them out. Oops.