Argentina
Off the eastern tip of Tierra del Fuego, separated from the mainland by the treacherous Strait of Le Maire, Isla de los Estados (Staten Island) is one of the most remote and atmospheric islands in the Southern Hemisphere — a mountainous, storm-battered landmass of dense sub-Antarctic forest, sheer coastal cliffs, and abandoned lighthouses that once guided ships around the Horn. This island, roughly sixty-five kilometers long and barely fifteen kilometers wide, has been largely uninhabited since the Argentine Navy withdrew its last permanent personnel in the 1990s, and it now exists in a state of near-complete wilderness that is rare even by Patagonian standards.
The island's literary and historical associations are extraordinary. Jules Verne set part of his novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World on Isla de los Estados, and the real Lighthouse of San Juan de Salvamento — built in 1884 as the first lighthouse in Argentine waters — has become a pilgrimage site for maritime enthusiasts. The reconstructed lighthouse (the original collapsed) stands on a promontory overlooking the Drake Passage, its beam once the last reassurance for ships rounding the Horn from east to west. The island also served as a penal colony in the late nineteenth century, and the ruins of the prison buildings add another layer of atmospheric decay to an already haunting landscape.
The natural environment is sub-Antarctic in character and remarkable in its wildness. Dense forests of Antarctic beech (Nothofagus) cloak the lower slopes, their branches heavy with Old Man's Beard lichen and their trunks twisted by the perpetual westerly gales. Above the tree line, alpine tundra gives way to rocky peaks often lost in cloud. The coastline is a maze of deeply indented bays, rocky promontories, and kelp forests where southern sea lions, fur seals, and several penguin species — including rockhopper penguins, with their distinctive golden eyebrows — maintain breeding colonies.
The waters surrounding Isla de los Estados are among the most dangerous in the world. The convergence of the Drake Passage, the Strait of Le Maire, and the South Atlantic creates conditions of extreme tidal races, standing waves, and unpredictable currents that have claimed countless ships over the centuries. The island's graveyards, both on shore and beneath the waves, testify to the toll exacted by these waters on the mariners who once routinely sailed them.
Expedition cruise ships visit Isla de los Estados infrequently, as the island's exposed position and lack of sheltered anchorage make landing conditions challenging and often impossible. When conditions permit, Zodiac landings provide access to the lighthouse site, penguin colonies, and forest trails. The austral summer from December through February offers the mildest conditions and longest daylight, though even in summer, temperatures rarely exceed 10°C, and rain, wind, and fog are near-constant companions. The experience of landing on this windswept, nearly abandoned island — one of the last places where the wild Southern Ocean meets the forested Americas — is among the most exclusive and atmospheric in all of expedition cruising.