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 H ...

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

in Santa Cruz Province of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, 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 t ...

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

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare 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 or deleg ...

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 retu ...

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 Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

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 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 by the Spanish expedition commanded by

Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...

. Other Spanish expeditions followed, including

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532–1592) was a Spanish explorer, author, historian, mathematician, and astronomer. His birthplace is not certain and may have been Pontevedra, in Galicia, where his paternal family originated, or Alcalá de Henare ...

. On 17 December 1586 the privateer

sailed into the estuary on his flagship the of 120 tons burthen, accompanied by the ''Hugh Gallant'' of 40 tons burthen and the ''Content'' of 60 tons burthen during his voyage of circumnavigation. 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 met only a few Native Americans, 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. In 1591 Cavendish set out on another expedition with five ships, himself sailing as admiral on the ''Leicester Galleon'', while the ''Desire'' was commanded by captain John Davis. They suffered problems in the winter at the Strait of Magellan so turned north, and on 20 May 1592 the ''Desire'' and the ''Black Pinnace'' lost touch with other ships and went into Port Desire to wait for Cavendish. He did not turn up, so in August they sailed 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 (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) 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 about from Cape Dubouze ...

. In 1670

John Narborough Rear-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 e ...

visited ''Port Desire'' and claimed the territory for England, but no substantial attempt was made to assert the British claim against the Spanish claim to the region. Captain John Byron went on from there to claim British possession of the Falklands in the 1760s, and when the Spanish attacked there in 1770 one of the ships forced to flee was the sloop-of-war ''Swift'' which returned to ''Port Desire'', but was shipwrecked on a concealed rock. Antonio de Biedma founded the Nueva Colonia de Floridablanca in 1780 in the area near present-day Puerto Deseado, later shut down by Viceroy Vertíz. In 1790 a fort was established at Puerto Deseado by the Real Compañía Marítima (Royal Maritime Company) of Charles IV of Spain, which served as a base for whaling until its abandonment in 1806. On 23 December 1833, the young naturalist,

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

, aboard

HMS Beagle HMS ''Beagle'' was a 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803 (roughly equivalent to £ in 2018), was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on t ...

, commanded by captain

Robert FitzRoy Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra de ...

stopped at the port.

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.

Climate

Under the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

, Puerto Deseado has a

cold semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(''BSk'') with mild, occasionally warm summers and cold winters. In spite of the lack of rainfall, the weather generally remains cloudy, with average temperatures and gloominess being reminiscent of the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the 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 and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

. Due to the effect of more continental interior conditions, occasional extreme heat and harsh frosts do appear.

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 is set almost entirely in Puerto Deseado.

Literature

Puerto Deseado is the main setting of the novels ''The Sunken Secret'' and ''The Arrow Collector'' by Cristian Perfumo. ''The Sunken Secret'' is based on the true story of the wreck and recovery of HMS Swift (1763) a British sloop of war that sank off the town's coast. The town is mentioned in ''The Whispering Land'' by the naturalist and author, Gerald Durrell.

References

Notes

External links

Official website
*
Map of Puerto Deseado
{{Authority control Port settlements in Argentina Populated coastal places in Argentina Populated places in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina Populated places established in 1884 1884 establishments in Argentina