We spent our last morning in Punta Arenas visiting the Museo Nao Victoria, where we were able to explore a historically accurate replica of the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
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| The Vittoria |
The Vittoria, one of five in Ferdinand Magellan's fleet (and the only one to complete the entire voyage) is an impressive boat, a gorgeous sight to see (especially since it overlooks the Strait of the Magellan), and one that I wouldn't actually want to spend a significant amount of time on - especially in the 1500s.
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| Relax, Carpenter. The ship won't break along the way. |
The flotilla started off with 270 crewman - 18 survived. (Magellan himself was not one of them -- he died in the Philippines
of a poisoned arrow after getting involved in a bit of a dispute between fighting tribes. He didn't quite fulfill his goal of sailing around the world, but he did manage to give a name to an ocean that stuck (The Pacific), and get a strait named after him. So there's that.) They carried food and water with them (but not enough, which meant that several of the men starved to death along the way) (or died of scurvy. pack your oranges, folks), lived in tight quarters (which may or may not have been a contributing factor to the several attempts at mutiny and desertion along the way), and faced extremely difficult weather patterns as they approached the spot where the two oceans met.
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| Do not drink and signal to the fleet |
They had big challenges, and lost a lot of people along the way. One smaller (?) aspect of exploration from this time period that struck me as interesting is that the only way for the fleet to
communicate with each other was with the use of lanterns. (This might be insignificant, given that I haven't found much information about it - but with limited access to the Internet, I'm not exactly digging deep here.) The placement of this particular creepy mannequin made me
wonder about how easy it could have been to for 1500s-era-explorers to
miscommunicate with each other.
We visited the museum based on the recommendation of some travelers we met during
History Day.
(The museum been open for three years - so, you know, new enough to not be in the guide books yet).
The museum is privately owned, but recognized well (possibly funded?) by the Chilean government because of its role in preserving and highlighting an important part of the region's history, and for the employment the projects bring to the area. They are currently building a replica of the HMS Beagle, and I believe it will be worth a visit in a few years.
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| View from the Captain's Quarters |
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| Captain's supplies |
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| Navigation equipment |
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| HMS Beagle Construction |
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