The desire for adventure and the search for new worldviews were the driving force that drove many Romantic artists to embark on journeys to distant lands. This was the case with Whistler, a painter and crew member of an English fleet that arrived in Valparaíso in 1866, the year it was bombarded during the Chilean war against Spain. This particular stay in Valparaíso provided the painter with the vision necessary to find the distinctive style he so eagerly sought. Whistler's paintings, the current landscape of the Valparaíso coast, and archival images of a risky voyage to Antarctica are the visual counterpart to the letters a woman writes to Pedro, a lover of maritime adventure novels, on the eve of a ship trip.