Sailing northwards along the Chilean Coast
Studies, work and family matters kept Alexander von Humboldt from his passion for travelling and exploring until the age of 27. It was then, in 1799, when together with Aimé Bonpland he made a great team when they were granted a Spanish passport to the colonies in South America and the Philippines.
As Andrea Wulf mentions in her book The Invention of Nature, setting foot aboard the frigate Pizarro represented "the beginning of a new life, a period of 5 years in which Humboldt would change from a curious talented young man into the most extraordinary scientist of his age. It was here that Humboldt would see nature with both head and heart."
It was the travelling, the sailing. It was this expedition that sparked in him the idea of merging and integrating both his scientific and artistic capacities, describing the earth as 'a natural whole animated by inward forces', pre-dating Lovelock's Gaia Theory for more than 150 years.
In an attempt to explain his collection of a vast amount of data and samples and make sense of nature as a whole, he considered the dependence of currents and prevailing winds, atmospheric circulation and its effects on the oceans, the differences in seawater salinity, the configuration of the shoreline, the changes in sea depth, and the variations in the biota as he travelled both in a latitudinal and altitudinal range.
Like this, in 1802 when he sailed from Lima to Guayaquil he examined the cold current that runs along the western coast of South America. This long and narrow area that extends for most of the Pacific South American coast is a cold, nutrient-loaded flow that supports one of the most productive marine ecosystems. A current that bears his name and where sightings of marine wildlife are common. A shark follows the ship for a moment, several Northern Royal albatrosses are spotted for the first time in our trip. With them, Black-browed albatrosses soar around us too, together with a variety of petrels, from the large Giants to the small Wilson storm petrels.
And along the Humboldt Current is where we sail. Since we left the broken coast of southern Chile at the latitude north of Chiloé (42° S): southeasterly trade wind area and the northward-flowing surface oceanographic current. The interactions with the land, atmosphere, rapidly rising sea bottom and latitude determine the different climate area where we find ourselves now. Far to the south we left the temperate rainforests and glacial landscapes. Now the land systems are warm and dry, the water temperature higher, despite not being high enough if we just take into account the 30° S latitudes where we are sailing — due to the northbound sea circulation along the coast. Systems interrelated, connected. We have been witnesses to these changes during our voyage, travelling through the environmental and biological changes that Humboldt also experienced at the beginning of the 19th century, and who was the first to integrate them as part of a whole Nature network.
Sailing a good southerly and with such an important current with us, Europa has made good 155 nm today before the wind dies down.
Despite the rolling conditions, a good day that also gave us the chance to start checking and making preparations to add more possibilities of canvas. Studding sail booms are lowered on deck and inspected, Skysail looked over.
