Patagonia ranges from frozen glaciers to breath-taking arid grasslands. We explored this incredible place in February 2023.

41.8101° S, 68.9063° W

TOPOGRAPHY

forests, GRASSLANDS, Glaciers, mountains, rivers,

volcanoes

CONTINENT

SOUTH AMERICA

Patagonia boasts some of the most magnificent coastal waters on earth. The Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage are all considered by navigators, explorers, and sportsmen to contain some of the most extraordinary wildlife and geography on the planet.

Traveling down these untamed seas, and through Costa Rica and Panama, I discovered the importance of adventure in the modern age. And, perhaps more pressingly, I realize how lucky we are to live in such a diverse, complex and adaptable world.

Here, soaring cliffs rise out of the ocean, cut off only by the great white skies above them and the rattle of the gulls and the hurtling waterfalls that meet the fractured tides below. Beneath us, the seas swarm with stingray and the curve of great whales that disappear back to the depths as quickly as they arrived.

Ice erupts on our horizon, and lies scattered in the still water. This is a place that reminds us of how minuscule we are, putting us in our place within the gravity and breadth of nature, a world where we are passengers through a region we have never conquered. It is humbling in a way you could never explain in words.

There is a silence to being here that you can’t get anywhere else on earth. Out of the green and the gloom, you’re met by the shapes of an alien land. Silhouettes of rays melt into sight and fade like ghosts into the dark.

Clouds of sablefish and corvina erupt from the rock bed, swarming into nothing. Eels stare out with gaping mouths and watch as we move through their world, and sharks flex beneath an obscured white sun. It is so easy to forget in our tarmacked world where skyscrapers rocket into the night that these spaces exist. There is a place beyond our concepts of pragmatism, function, logic.

But this world is as ruthless as it can be gentle. There’s definitely been moments on Perseus when the seas have seemed to swallow entire reefs and islands out of view, and the skies have split with thunder and lightning that makes night look like day. Here, waves can reach twenty feet tall and crush cargo ships and topple sea-stacks. Nature is as cruel as it is kind. It’s a reminder that we’re not in charge, not really. Technology and skill might win out, but strength and power always belong to the planet.

It was powerful to be reminded of the strength and beauty of the oceans around us. I’ve spent so much of my life in offices, boardrooms, suits and shareholder meetings that it felt incredible to be so tangibly close to a world beyond human creation.