Puerto Deseado, originally called Port Desire, is a city of about 15,000 inhabitants and a fishing

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

in Santa Cruz Province of

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, on the estuary of the

Deseado River Deseado River () is a river in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz. The name Deseado comes from the English ''Desire'', the name of one of the two ships commanded by John Davis during the Thomas Cavendish expedition of 1592. The source of ...

. It was named ''Port Desire'' by the

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

Thomas Cavendish Sir Thomas Cavendish (1560 – May 1592) was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and ret ...

in 1586 after the name of his ship, and later became known by the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

translation of the name. Today, the straggly town has a couple of pleasant squares, a former railway station and two museums, one with a collection of indigenous artifacts and one at the seafront with relics from the

sloop of war During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all ...

HMS ''Swift'' which sank in 1770, recovered after its wreck was discovered in the port in 1982. The coast boasts spectacular scenery and colonies of marine wildlife close to the town.

History

The harbour, nearly long, was discovered in 1520 during the first

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first circumnaviga ...

of the world by the Magellan-Elcano Spanish expedition. Other Spanish expeditions followed, including the

Loaísa expedition The Loaísa expedition was an early 16th-century Spanish voyage of discovery to the Pacific Ocean, commanded by (1490 – 20 July 1526) and ordered by King Charles I of Spain to colonize the Spice Islands in the East Indies. The seven-ship fleet ...

(1525) or the

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532–1592) was a Spanish adventurer, author, historian, mathematician, and astronomer. He was named the governor of the Strait of Magellan by King Philip II of Spain, Philip II in 1580. His birthplace is not certain ...

expedition (1579). Sixty six years after the Magellan Elcano expedition, on 17 December 1586, the English privateer

sailed into the estuary during his voyage of circumnavigation seeking to raid the Pacific coasts of the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru (), officially known as the Kingdom of Peru (), was a Monarchy of Spain, Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in ...

. His fleet consisted of his

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

, , accompanied by ''Hugh Gallant'' and ''Content.'' He named the harbour "Port Desire" after his ship, and the point of land at the harbour mouth is still known as ''Punta Cavendish''. They were faced by the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

Tehuelche, who shot arrows that wounded some of the crew. After ten days Cavendish took his ships on their way, and returned to England in 1588. A second attempt by the English to attack or occupy parts of the Spanish Empire resulted in Cavendish leading an expedition in 1591 with five ships, sailing on ''Leicester Galleon''. After raiding

Santos Santos may refer to: People *Santos (surname) * Santos Balmori Picazo (1899–1992), Spanish-Mexican painter * Santos Benavides (1823–1891), Confederate general in the American Civil War Places *Santos, São Paulo, a municipality in São Paulo ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

the fleet suffered problems in the winter at the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...

, and some of the boats went to Port Desire. The few surviving men and boats made their way back to England, sailing to the nearby "Penguin Island" then south, but were caught by a storm and, forced to run before the wind, came on unknown islands, making the first probable sighting of the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

. The

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, a rival nation to

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, tried to occupy Puerto Deseado and the southern part of the

during the 1670

John Narborough Admiral Sir John Narborough (or Narbrough, c. 1640–1688) was an English naval commander. He served with distinction in the Anglo-Dutch Wars and against the pirates of the Barbary Coast. He is also known for leading a poorly understood expedi ...

failed expedition. In 1789 the port was visited by both ships, ''Atrevida'' and ''Descubierta'', of the Malaspina Scientific Expedition. On the voyage that was to found '' Nueva Colonia y Fuerte de Floridablanca,'' on 20 April 1780 Antonio Viedma made a stop and founded a temporary settlement on the river's south bank. During the seven months it was inhabited, houses, a bread oven, a forge, a hospital for

scurvy Scurvy is a deficiency disease (state of malnutrition) resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum d ...

and a wooden fort were built, and about one hundred people lived there, including the sea men. In 1790, during the

viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata or Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires ( or Virreinato de Buenos Aires or ) meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was ...

times, the Armada forced captain

John Byron Vice-Admiral John Byron (8 November 1723 – 1 April 1786) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. He earned the nickname "Foul-Weather Jack" in the press because of his frequent encounters with bad weather at sea. As a midshipman, he sa ...

out of the Falklands. During his escape, the

sloop-of-war During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all u ...

''Swift'' headed for Port Desire, but was shipwrecked on a concealed rock. In 1790 a village and fort was established at Puerto Deseado by the ''Real Compañía Marítima'' (Royal Maritime Company). It was the main headquarters of an array of fishing posts such as the one in isla Pingüinos. It was built with a bread oven, farming land, a hospital, a chapel, fishing and salting facilities, and the Todos los Santos and San Carlos forts, which served as the

presidio A presidio (''jail, fortification'') was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word ''praesidium'' meaning ''pr ...

. The desertion of the villagers, cost of constant supplies and lack of whales in the neighbourhood (only sea lions were found) caused the end of the ''Real Compañía Marítima'', and the last soldiers of the presidio left in 1807 during the

British invasions of the River Plate The British invasions of the River Plate were two unsuccessful British attempts to seize control of the Spanish colony of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, located around the Río de la Plata in South America – in present-day Argenti ...

. At the time of the Argentine Confederation, in 1833, HMS ''Beagle'' stopped at the port, with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

a member of the crew. The village was founded for the third time in 1882 when Antonio Oneto obtained funds from

Hipólito Yrigoyen Juan Hipólito del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Yrigoyen (12 July 1852 – 3 July 1933) was an Argentine politician of the Radical Civic Union who served as President of Argentina from 1916 to 1922 and again from 1928 until his overthrow in ...

Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

, to establish Deseado and Santa Cruz. The new villagers were given farming land, credits and tools. In 1902 the railway station from the Puerto Deseado Railway was built. During the 1982

Falklands War The Falklands War () was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British Overseas Territories, British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and Falkland Islands Dependenci ...

the "Kettledrum operation" aiming to bomb Deseado was planned, but not carried out.

Traffic

The town was serviced by the freight railwayline running form Las Heras via Pico Truncado to Puerto Deseado up until 1976. According t
Railway gazette
this line will be modernized shortly for reopening end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. The town is connected to the national road system via a 120 km long nearly straight secondary road.

Geography

Climate

Under the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

, Puerto Deseado has a cold semi-desert climate (''BSk'') with mild, occasionally warm summers and cold winters. Despite the year-round low rainfall, the weather generally remains cloudy, with average temperatures and cloudiness being reminiscent of the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

. Due to the effect of more continental inland conditions, occasional excessive heat in summer and harsh frosts in winter occur.

Tourism

Most of the tourism industry is based on touring the estuary to see the diverse fauna, such as the

Commerson's dolphin Commerson's dolphin (''Cephalorhynchus commersonii''), also referred to by the common names jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin, panda dolphin, or tonina overa (in South America), is a small oceanic dolphin of the genus ''Cephalorhynchus''. ...

, Magellanic and

rockhopper penguin The rockhopper penguins are three closely related taxa of crested penguins that have been traditionally treated as a single species and are sometimes split into three species. Not all experts agree on the classification of these penguins. Some ...

Economy

Puerto Deseado's economy is based on the fishing industry. There are several fish-processing plants by its coasts on "Avenida Costanera" and a high percentage of the population works on jobs related to industrial fishing such as stevedores, crane operators, fish cleaners and the like.

References in films and literature

Films

The movie ''Gone Fishing'' by

Carlos Sorín Carlos Sorín (born 1944 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a film director, screenplay writer, cinematographer, and film producer. He works mainly in the cinema of Argentina.

is set almost entirely in Puerto Deseado.