CHILE: Divine service on two sailing school ships

High noon, 20th October, Magellan Strait in rocky Tierra del Fuego. At one of the narrowest points in the channel, two sail training ships meet that could be sister ships. Both topsail schooners, the Chilean Esmeralda and the Spanish Juan Sebastian De Elcano, originally come from the naval stronghold of Cadiz. The Chilean ship is a replica that was actually built for the Spanish Marine before it was realised that even a training ship was enough. Today, 500 years after the first circumnavigation of the world by Magellan and his successor Elcano, both tall ships met in the Bahia de Fortescue and commemorated the brave explorers in a joint church service. Where Brother Pedro Valderrama, the "Capellan de la Flota", buried a small wooden cross in the ground during the first mass on Tierra del Fuego in 1520, there is now a 10 metre high cross which, tellingly, serves as a navigation marker. Christian seafaring indeed!