Cerro Fitz Roy
Fitz Roy was the captain of the Beagle which in 1828 was ordered by the Admiralty to sail to South America to chart the shape of the land. The vessel was the Beagle. The captain was the brilliant 23 year old Robert Fitz Roy. South America is an astonishing complex of islands, inlets, and peninsulars. Fitz Roy charted these with the instruments available to him at the time. He was brilliantly accurate and only very recent arial photography has improved his mapping a little. As was traditional, places were named after the crew of the vessel doing the charts. The Beagle was also supposed to collect specimans and a young trainee cleric called Charles Darwin was selected. It was the observations on this voyage which led to his theories on the evolution of species. At first Fitz Roy and Darwin were friends but Fitz Roy had a deep and rigid faith and he increasingly saw Darwin challenging traditional views of God, even forming a view in which a god had no place. Their friendship became strained but they remained in courteous contact for the rest of the lives. Fitz Roy was sympathetic to the natives of the area but made the mistake (as we would now recognise it ) of taking three Fuegan natives back to England where two of them died. Fitz Roy believed he could predict the weather, particularly storms. He noted that low pressure preceded storms. He thought that storm winds move in a circular way. In both of these he was correct but his ideas were mocked at the time. When he was retired from active service he spent much of his own money setting up a' weather office' He used the new telegraph to receive messages from weather 'stations' and note the progress of winds and storms. Many ordinary sailors appreciated his work but the Admioralty ignored him. His own money was gone. His friend Darwin was gaining influence in ideas about our origins and the absence of a god. One morning Fitz Roy, a very capable man but with a flaw in him, cut his own throat with a razor. Fitz Roy was right however. If you listen to the shipping forecast today you will hear a weather area called Fitz Roy named in his honour.
The Beagle was eventually retired from active service. It ended up as an anti smuggling ship in the River Crouch, ten miles north of Southend. It's remains have been found at Paglesham Creek, a short journey from Southend.
Poincenot, Fitz Roy and the Beagle!
The glacier above Lago Sucia.
The clouds streams showing a southerly wind above the ice field, indicating a spell of dry weather.
The sun dipping above Fitz Roy.
