While we wait for the fleet of Vendée Globe skippers to arrive, I propose a short stopover along the South American coast, off Punta del Este in Uruguay.
This small island lies on the north bank of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, opposite the seaside resort of Punta del Este, on the doorstep of Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
In October 1515, Juan Díaz de Solís, a Portuguese navigator in the service of the Spanish crown, began exploring the shores of South America at the head of a flotilla of three ships and 70 men. In February 1516, he discovered this small island marking the entrance to a large bay, naming the first "San Sebastian de Cádiz" and the second "Rio de la Plata" (the Silver River). At the head of a smaller group, he embarks on the estuary that opens up before him to the confluence of the two rivers, the Rio Urugay and the Rio Paraná. Setting foot on land to explore the banks, the small party was attacked by a tribe of natives, Guaranis or Charrúas according to historians. A few survivors managed to escape, but only two ships returned to Seville in September 1516. The small island of Lobos was visited by a Venetian navigator in 1527, and Magellan, Francis Drake and Charles Darwin also made a quick stopover.
Today, the 43.5-hectare island is home to a large colony of sea lions and sea wolves, and is now part of Uruguay's Coastal Islands Nature Reserve.
Witness to numerous shipwrecks, it was decided to build a lighthouse in 1858. The 59-metre-high tower, renovated in 1906, is one of the tallest in South America. It is now automated.
