South Antilles

The South Antilles (in Spanish: Antillas del Sur) or Antartilles (in Spanish: Antartillas) is the name given in some parts of South America to the insular group of volcanic origin that extends in the form of a great sinusoid from the southeastern edges of the Argentine Sea to bordering the western coasts of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The whole of the sub-Antarctic South Antilles presents regions cleared of snow during the prolonged summer, in these extensions a vegetal formation of the tundra and tussock types thrives.

The volcanism is active in certain segments of this insular link, so near the Melchior Islands is possible, even in the Antarctic winter, swimming in certain areas because they are heated by underwater volcanoes.

Gabriel de Castilla and the (mostly) Hispanic expedition members who accompanied him were the first to discover the South Antilles in the middle of the 17th century.

Later Hispanic foqueros (mainly from the Southern Cone) used to make stays and camps during the summers, it is in the middle of the s. XVIII that begins the irruption of seamen and whalers of other origins, among them British.