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Published: February 25th 2007
What is it with us and boats?
First there were problems when we booked our tickets in Santiago as we had picked the wrong dates & it was a bugger to change them. Then there´s the panic when we are told that one of the two Navimag boats had broken down & half the cruises had been cancelled so we had to spend a morning desperately trying to phone our sales person only to find out that our cruise was fine (but it was a good job we had changed those dates)! Then the cherry on the cake we go to the offices in Puerto Montt to confirm our departure only to be told that for some reason our booking had been cancelled.
Luckily after I had called to check whether our boat had been cancelled we had received an email confirming that our reservation was ok which I was able to show as proof. After a nail-biting hour they were able to confirm our booking & give us the tickets. Of course this had to be at the expense of two poor people who had booked but were late paying for their trip so they got bumped
off so we could get on (sound familiar)? So while we were relieved to be going we also felt very sorry for those two people. It turned out that we were doubly lucky as it was the larger of the two ships that had broken down & our new boat the Puerto Eden had only half the capacity for passengers so a lot of people had lost their places.
On the morning we sailed we got up very early for breakfast at our hostel & got down to the Navimag offices as soon as they opened to make sure that if anything else went wrong there was as much time as possible to sort things out. To our relief we were able to check in with no problems & the lovely lady who had sorted out our booking for us gave us a huge smile as she handed over our boarding passes (her name was Monica, the same name as my Mum's so of course she had to be lovely). Boarding didn´t actaully start until 2pm so we wandered back along the street to an internet cafe to try and catch up with our blogging. *It´s hard to find
web cafes here that have a fast enough connection to upload photos so that´s why you wait for ages for a blog to come along & then three of them arrive at once* Then we bought some wine (Clos of course) & snacks for our voyage & headed back to the port.
After a bit of a wait they commenced boarding, calling us by our cabin numbers. We were in the last group to be called & dawdled behind taking photos so that we were the last to board. We walked up the cargo ramp on to the ferry then joined a large group of people on a cargo lift big enough to haul a huge lorry to the upper decks. Then we rose slowly up through the ship to the level of the passenger decks. We hurried excitedly into the ship to check out our cabin. This was in the middle of the ship so had no porthole but was much larger than the other cabins so we were happy. Our two cabin mates were already inside so we introduced ourselves. Nicole & Claude were a retired french speaking couple from Quebec they asked if we would mind
if they had both of the lower bunks which was fine with us as it means we could pull faces at each other accross the room
We were supposed to sail at 4pm so after dumping our bags we went off to explore the ship. This didn´t take too long as aside from the cabins there was one large room which was split into a dining area with cafeteria & bar & a lounge area which also doubled up as cinema, bingo hall & disco. The only space that passengers could go inside the ship was the bridge which was heaving with people all jostling for space & trying to peer into the various instruments. It was close to our sailing time so we went out on deck and waited & waited & got cold so went back inside. Eventually after a long wait there was an announcment that our departure was going to be delayed due to technical problems, so we did the only sensible thing, we went to our cabin for a nap.
We eventually set sail at about 9.45pm. After being served dinner an announcement came over the speakers inviting us to go on deck
to enjoy the manoouuuers it took us a few seconds to realise that they didn´t mean cows pooing but manouvers . We went outside to watch the twinkling lights of Puerto Montt disappear as we sailed off into the night.
The next morning we were awoken first by the sound of Claude being sick ("eee does not have the good stomak for boats") & then at 7am by a loud announcement that the first shift of breakfast was being served. There wasn´t enough room to seat everyone in the dining room so we were split into 3 different groups. We were up first so we rubbed the sleep out of our eyes threw on our clothes & went down a deck to queue up at the serving hatches to collect our breakfast which consisted of a juice, coffee, piece of fruit, bread, butter & jam, bowl of cereal & "scrumbled eggs" (one of our favourite Navimag typos) with ham & cheese & finally a chocolate brownie which we would usually squirrel away to snack on later. The food on board was exactly not fine dining but there was always plenty of it.
Our time was spent wandering around
on deck looking at the beautiful views & spotting blow spouts from passing whales, snooping around the bridge (I made the mistake of trying to walk across the front of the bridge during one of the more trickier manouvers & got winded when our huge captain grabbed me around the waist lifted me off my feet & plonked me out of the way (which was rather embarrassing but I suppose was better than us crashing into a mountain), listening to lectures given by the two identical twin type blonde guides, watching movies (like another favourite typo "My Bi Fat Greek Wedding") & of course playing cards in the dinning hall. This is how we got our first experience of how sociable this voyage was going to be as while we were playing a rather dull game of rummy a good looking young frenchman came over & asked if he could join us. Guillaume (or William to you & me) became an instant hit as not only did he teach us a new version of Rummy which was much more interesting than the version we new, he also taught us a south american card game Ariba Abajo which is now our
favourite aaaaaand on top of that he was very generous in sharing his wine (which he always seemed to be a carrying) & was a very funny & interesting person to chat to.
Claude was by now looking much happier as he had got hold of some sea sickness pills which was just in time as after dinner we entered the Gulfo de Penas the most exposed part of our voyage where the waves soon had the ship rolling & more than a few people were starting to look a little green.
Andrea & I didn´t fancy the watching the film that night so we went to the far end of the room to play Ariba Abaho we were soon started chatting to two English blokes Andy & John. We soon abandoned our game as we were having too much fun chatting & soon our little group grew when we were joined by later by John´s girlfriend Jackie, another John & his girlfriend Claire. We were all having such a good time getting squiffy, chatting and laughing that we got the odd shhhhhhh from the people watching the film. Poor old Andy had to keep breaking off from
telling amusing stories to run outside as he too does not have the good stomak for boats. Andrea & I were the last passengers to bed that evening so we went up on to the top deck to enjoy the feeling of the boat crashing through the waves & amusing ourselves by doing sad Titanic impressions (I blame the Clos).
The during the night we were woken a few times by the motion of the boat trying to throwing us out of our beds & by poor old Claude getting up to be sick. We were on the last food shift that day so could have had a lie in but we were too excited to stay in bed so we threw on our clothes & went out on deck. We were still crossing the open sea but the sea was much calmer than it had been during the night & we could see land in the distance. We spent breakfast chatting to three lovely american ladies who were amazed at how much time we had been away & who astounded us with how little holiday they get a year (10 days ... ye gawds) & by the time
we had finished breakfast we were cruising through the fjords again.
The weather couldn´t make it´s mind up that day & the beautiful sunny skies soon dissapeared to be replaced by rain & mist which meant more ariba abajo for us so we didn´t mind. Our first interesting encounter of the day was an abandoned ship that was deliberately scuppered by it´s captain in a failed attempt to claim for insurance. The boat is so stuck on a rock that it could not be salvaged & will remain there until it rusts away. Everyone went out on deck to watch the ship pass, the weather was perfect as the ghost ship appeared earily out of the mist & as we drew level with it our captain sounded the horn makinfg us jump & sending hundreds of seabirds who had been roosting on the ghost ship reeling into the air. It was a pretty cool encounter.
As we sailed on the weather cleared to give us beautiful views as we approached the tiny & remote village of Puerto Eden. Unfortunately due to our delayed departure from Puerto Montt we didn´t have enough time to disembark from the ship to
visit the port so instead we stood on deck admiring the view & smelling the delicious smells of smoking salmon wafting over to us from the smoke sheds on shore.
The afternoon was spent in the usual way, chatting with all our new shipmate friends, playing cards & going out on deck to admire the views until the cold wind drove us back inside again. After dinner we went out on deck to witness the high point of our trip the approch up to the largest glacier in South America; Pio XI. To our delight as we stood on the bow three Orcas came crashing threw the wake & raced the ship for a few minutes ... at least we think they were orcas, there was a debate at the time that they could have been Chilean Dolphins ... but they looked like Orcas to us & anyway it was a magical encounter! It was 9.30pm by the time we actually got there & the twighlight really brought out the glacial blue of the ice as well as casting a delicate pink accross the peaks of ice. It was beautiful but my god it was cold, the wind was
so biting that we spent most of the time sitting on the deck sheltering as much as possible agains the hull with only our noses poking over the top.
As we sailed on our little group rushed back inside to grab a good table for the nights entertainment Bingo (pronounced by the guides as Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinngooooooooh!!!) . It was a raucous evening & none of us came anywhere near winning but we had a huge amount of fun & consumed quite a huge amount of alcohol.
The next morning we felt a little the worse for wear so we felt relieved that this was our last days sailing & should be a short day as we were scheduled to arrive in Puerto Natales at about 4pm. On the way there was more stunning scenery & the navigation through the narrowest section of fjords to enjoy (I kept well clear of the front of the bridge this time)! It was about 5pm when we approached Puerto Natales & were all told to put our bags in the dinning room & return our keys.
We all crammed in to the dinning room to await departure but when the ship tried
to dock the Patagonian wind was blowing so hard that the boat swung to far & one of the huge ropes snapped. There was an announcement that the harbour master had decided that the conditions were too dangerous & had closed the port meaning that we had to sail out into the fjords back the way we came to find a sheltered spot. After that we received no more information so none of us new whether we would actually make it into port that night & as the wind was showing no sign of dropping & the light was failing fast it seemed more & more likely that we would be spending another night on the boat.
After a few hours of waiting which in our case meant playing cards, drinking William´s wine & laughing with our friends the food shutters opened & we were served up a surprise pasta dinner, which was actually the tastiest meal we had had on the ship. John & I even went back for seconds, although this was really a ploy to try to hold on to our table as it had just been announced that there would be a free game of
Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinngooooooooh!!!!. We were just starting to get excited about playing when there was another announcement that the harbour was now open & we were going to dock.
At 10.30pm we finally docked & slowly everyone started to file out of the dinning hall. We said fond farewells to all our new friends & then made our way back down to the cargo lift feeling sad to leave but also a bit relieved to get our freedom back again. We walked the few blocks up to our hostel struggling under the weight of our heavy packs & feeling a bit nervous about how on earth we were going to carry all our camping gear with us when we went treking in Torres del Paine. The next day we spent some town wandering around the sweet little town & met up with John, Jackie & Andy for a farewell lunch before they left for the park on the afternoon bus. We had had such a fun time on the Navimag & had met some really great people. We hoped to bump into them again along the way .....
K x
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anonymous
non-member comment
hello darlings, marvellous stuff! i had a rather "different" experience than yours with P Montt and Lago Carrera (including a 30k walk by accident, long story), but lovely to see your pics dave xxx