Background
Son of Fèlix Cardona i Paradeda and Josefa Puig i Comas.
Son of Fèlix Cardona i Paradeda and Josefa Puig i Comas.
He was educated at the boarding school of Collell and studied later in the Nautical School of Barcelona. He finished his studies in 1922 and embarked in a ship.
After a trip of practices he stayed in Venezuela due to his interest in exploration. Later, he returned back to Malgrat de March and founded a textile factory but had to escape to Venezuela due to economic problems. He made several expeditions staying long time with the natives.
Together with Joan Maria Mundó i Freixas, he organised an expedition to the southwest of Venezuela starting in San Pedro de las Bocas, tracing back the rivers Caroni and Caruao until they arrived to the Auyán-tepui, discovering the waterfall known nowadays by the name Angel Falls (in honour to Jimmy Angel, but in the native tongue were designated as Churun Merú).
This waterfall has near 1 km of height and is the highest in the world. In 1937 he accompanied Jimmy Angel flying over the Churún Merú.
Jimmy Angel later on tried to land on the top, crashing the plane, but he survived and Fèlix Cardona, (who stayed in the base), helped to his rescue. The year 1946 was designated Botanic Explorer of the "Dirección de fronteras del Ministerio de Relaciones Interiores de Venezuela" (Direction of borders of the Ministry of Inner Relations of Venezuela).
A lot of vegetal species and even some animals have been named after him, for they were discovered by him.
He contributed in big way to the preparation of maps of Venezuela and did few discoveries, among them the above mentioned Angel Falls (very often wrongly attributet to Jimmy Ángel). He died in Caracas in 1982.