Puerto Deseado

The harbour, nearly 32 km (20 miles) long, was used by Magellan and other early navigators. On 17 December 1586 the privateer Thomas Cavendish sailed into the estuary on his flagship the Desire of 120 tons, accompanied by the Hugh Gallant of 40 tons and the Content of 60 tons. 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 provable sighting of the Falkland Islands.

In 1670 John Narborough visited Port Desire and claimed the territory for the Kingdom of Great Britain. Captain John Byron went on from there to claim British possession of the Falklands in the 1760s, then when the Spanish attacked there in 1770 one of the ships forced to flee was the corvette Swift which returned to Port Desire, but was shipwrecked on a concealed rock.

The port continued in use, and perhaps its most famous visitor came with the Voyage of the Beagle under captain Robert FitzRoy which brought the young naturalist Charles Darwin on 23 December 1833 for the first of several visits while HMS Beagle carried out its hydrographic survey.