Uncharted waters: Australis comes ashore

Imagine a cruise without crowds at every port, where the sights are not only new to you, but have also been unseen by anyone else, ever, and where the only lineup to worry about is made up of penguins.

Mauricio Alvarez, Stella Australis expedition director, doesn’t have to imagine.

The photographer, historian and modern-day adventurer leads ambitious treks with Australis, a cruise company that specializes in navigating the southernmost Chilean-Argentinian Patagonian channels, including some of the world’s most uninhabited destinations.

Alvarez, who lives on the Stella Australis (one of the company’s two ships) in eight-month stints, recently came ashore and gave a presentation to trade partners about his experiences at the end of the Earth.

“Part of my job is teaching conservation to guests,” Alvarez told PAX, going on to explain that in addition to leading expeditions, he also conducts scientific research in and around the destinations on Australis’ routes, sometimes even publishing papers about his findings – a practice he says does not have the same effect as an in-person experience.

“If I can impart a higher understanding or appreciation that will be taken off our ships and spread around the world, it is worth more to me than any scientific paper I could write,” he said.

Australis has been sailing around the fjords of Tierra del Fuego for 25 years, and has been landing on Cape Horn for 13 years. With an aim to astonish its guests with untouched landscapes and an emphasis on non-invasive tourism, the cruise company prides itself on being the first and only tourism service bringing people to the remote areas featured in its unique itineraries, such its infamous ‘End of the World’ expedition, which takes guests via Zodiac to Cape Horn National Park, historically a navigation route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, where winds can reach up to 230 kilometres an hour.

Although far from the sandy white beaches associated with most cruise tours, for Alvarez, the magic of the Australis experience comes from both its size (the company only carries 12,000 passengers on two ships per season) and the specialization of its product, which allows for adaptability in daily plans as well as unique access to regions otherwise only available to scientists.

“It’s a priority for me to make the schedule flexible,” Alvarez said. “If we see a humpback whale along our route, we can stop and change the itinerary so we can spend an hour or two simply watching it.”

Recently, Australis began to offer two new round-trip routes to its schedule; Punta Arenas and Ushuaia, where the ships visit areas boasting colonies of animals that can only be found in Antarctica, in locations even commercial fishing boats are not permitted to sail.

According to Alvarez, such access is usually only afforded to scientists, but because the cruise company has agreements with organizations such as the Center of Quaternary Studies Fuego-Patagonia and Antarctica and the National Corporation for Protected Areas (which develop education and scientific research of Patagonia’s fauna, national parks, and the effects of climate change on the environment), it has found a way to be the exception – to the benefit of its guests.

“It’s great to be able to finally offer these unique opportunities to the public,” he said. 

Australis is unique in other ways as well, applying rigorous environmental protection practices to the day-to-day functions of its voyages, from large innovations such as special waste treatment systems for both ships to more minute initiatives like providing each guest with a special flask upon boarding, to avoid the use of plastic water bottles. The company also uses a wind generator and solar panels where available, and prohibits shouting or loud noisemaking when leading tours in certain areas, to prevent acoustic contamination.

The purpose for such exacting standards is simple: maintaining the pristine environment upon which Australis’ product is built is beneficial to all those involved. For Alvarez and his Expedition team, however, the teachings, activities and research conducted with guests on their cruises are also designed to be examples of behaviour that can be adopted elsewhere, beyond the edges of the earth.