Freti Magellanici ac novi freti vulgo le Maire

The Le Maire Strait (; ), also known as the Straits Lemaire, is a strait between

Isla de los Estados Isla de los Estados is an Argentine island that lies off the eastern extremity of Tierra del Fuego, from which it is separated by the Le Maire Strait. The island is part of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, and of the department an ...

("Staten Island") and the eastern extremity of the

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

portion of

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

History

Jacob Le Maire Jacob Le Maire (c. 1585 – 22 December 1616) was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the Earth in 1615 and 1616. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honour, though not without contro ...

and

Willem Schouten Willem Cornelisz Schouten (1625) was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean. Biography Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born around 1567 in Hoorn, Holland, Seve ...

discovered the strait in 1616, while attempting to find a navigation link between the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

s, shortly before their discovery of

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

. The strait was named in honor of Le Maire. The Le Maire Strait has been Argentine controlled, but has been a historical access route for Chilean vessels, under international

maritime law Maritime law or admiralty law is a body of law that governs nautical issues and private maritime disputes. Admiralty law consists of both domestic law on maritime activities, and private international law governing the relationships between pri ...

. The stormy weather and strong currents that the waters around Cape Horn are so famous for also affect the strait. To avoid the risk of being blown against the shore of Tierra del Fuego, sailing ships often instead favour going around to the east of Isla de los Estados. The

Magellanic penguin The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some bird migration, migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occas ...

is found in the Le Maire Strait; this penguin has a breeding

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

, the location of one of the more southerly

breeding colonies of the Magellanic penguin.C. Michael Hogan. 2008

References

Citations

Bibliography

* C. Michael Hogan. 2008
''Magellanic Penguin'', GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg
* Michael A. Morris. 1989. ''The Strait of Magellan'', page 90 of 237 pages

External links

Satellite image from Google Maps
Landforms of Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina Straits of Argentina Maritime history of the Dutch Republic {{TierradelFuegoAR-geo-stub

History

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links