Instead of going through the Strait of Magellan I tried to go around the continent completely, keeping south of Tierra del Fuego, buuuut that didn't go so great. I see now you were telling the player to avoid the area completely.
I think this was mainly my fault. But maybe adding a warning to that whole area on the map and/or framing the map so you didn't have to visually circumnavigate it would have helped (not having Tahiti to the west of S. America but to the east of Australia).
I like the artistic choice of making it look like a collage, and I still had fun playing.