Humboldt Current

The Humboldt Current.

After heaving anchor in the early hours of the day, Europa finds herself starting her journey off Canal Chacao and in the open waters of Golfo de Coronados. The pilot has been picked up and for the first time in this trip we sail without any of them. Her engines are on, the steering is to the northwest, out to the coastal Pacific waters in search of wind.

And under the sunny skies, some wind we found at mid-morning. Time to set sail to run downwind. All squares in the fore mast first, then all the way to Top Gallants in the main, until it picks up over 30 kn, making for dousing and furling Main Course and Top Gallant before dinner. Europa rolls through speeds between 7 and 9 kn.

Here, out at the ocean, today's good southerlies are paired with the northwards flow of the waters. The Humboldt Current. This relatively cold water current flows north along the western coast of South America, extending from southern Chile (starting at about 42° S) to northern Peru (4° S). It produces upwelling of rich deep waters which increase the biological productivity of the system along almost all the South American coast.

Alexander von Humboldt. It is 1846 when he published his book Cosmos. In it, he offers the first description of this major oceanographic feature. A historical character nowadays not very well known or remembered, his ideas still shape our thinking about the planet and its inhabitants.

Alexander von Humboldt expressed a broader idea of how Nature works than the classical Natural Sciences of the time, which were based on a strong structure of its different branches, which were treated separately; when geology focused just on rocks and not processes; when biology was based primarily on taxonomy, trying systematically to categorise, recognise and catalogue species.

A true voyager, naturalist, talented and of brilliant mind, instead he approached the natural world as one great interrelated whole.

A perception of how landmasses, oceans, geology and oceanography influence the climate, how this determines different environments, habitats, ecosystems. How the environment affects life and how life has an effect on the environment as well.

The heart of his research during his journeys and adventures was to grasp the reasons for the geographical distribution of plants and animals on the planet according to the specific location, the latitude, altitude above sea level, landscape characteristics, the oceanic circulation. Factors that at the same time determine climatic areas and different meteorological processes.

For us, this has been a journey into both: into the natural world of Chile and, without being aware of it, also into Humboldt's observations and works. A voyage in the Europa that began at a latitude of almost 55° S, finding ourselves today at the latitudes of the 40s. Southern Patagonia, Chilean Channels, Pacific South American coast. Different oceanographic characteristics, different ecosystems, different climatic areas. Sailing the fjords and channels, climbing hills, walking on glacier fronts. Changes of landscapes, habitats, wildlife. Different distribution of the biota with the latitudinal and altitudinal ranges, different systems but nevertheless interconnected.