Through the Patagonian Channel with Navimag


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South America » Chile » Magallanes » Puerto Natales
February 22nd 2010
Published: February 22nd 2010
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What better way to recover from a trek than spending 4 days on a boat watching the scenery and sipping red wine!!!
We arrived for check in to our ship at 7.30pm. We spoke to the check in attendent and after we got the greetings out of the way he asked if we would mind changing from a dorm room to a cabin with only two other people. He said there was no catch so we said no problrm. After check in we had to board the ship at 9pm where we met our two cabin buddies. Theses were Huw from Bristol and Eoin from London. Both were the same age and really nice so we were happy we got put in with nice neighbours.
That first night all we had to do was attend a security meeting and relax.
The next morning we were woken up at 6.30am to see the narrowest pass on thr trip which was 80 meters, I though it would be narrower but the sunrise was nice. Two sunrise in a row, impressive eh?
After that we had our breakfast at 8am before been treated to some of the most splendid views I have ever seen. This trip is through the Patagonia ice sheet and you can really see why. There is Alpine Glaciars covering every single mountain throughout the day. In the afternoon we attended a lecture on the Geology of Glaciars. All the different types and how they are formed. I actually learned quite a lot altough it felt a little like being back in school!
After our lecture we were standing on deck and began to see ice in the water. This turned out the be Ice Bergs which had fallen off the glaciar we were heading to see. We arrived and saw a huge Tide Glaciar right into the see from the mountain. This was spectacular and the weater was absolutely perfect! Some of the crew jumped into a small speedboat and went up the the glaciar to get some ice for the drinks on the boat. After this we headed back into the Channel and made our way North. That night was spent drinking wine on the boat and meeting the rest of the passangers. Anne and I spent most of time with our cabin neighbours and we also met Nick and Robin both from Belfast and a very loud Lauren from LA and various others from Europe.
The next morning we were woken for brekfast at 8am. We had a lecture on the wildlife around Patagonia and the day seemed to be quite boring until I poured my first glass of wine and no, not becasue of the Alchohol but as I was walking out on deck on the intercom we heard "Dolphins on Portside". Immediately Anne and I ran to the deck and were met by the sight of around 200 Dolphins jumping around and doing tricks in the water. We were watching this and then head on the intercom "Whales on Starboard". We quickly ran to the other side of the boat and could see Humpback Whales shooting the steam as they were taking a breath and then saw the best of all.....Killer Whales (Orca´s). The Orcas were hunting the Dolphins and one of them even got one of the poor dolphins and left a big pool of blood in the sea. What an amazing finish to the day. That evening was again spent drinking wine and chatting with the rest of the passengers. We were due to have very bad waves as we entered the Ocean but we only had a slight bit of movement during the night and I slept like a baby with the motion.
The next morning we were again woken for breakfast and headed down for the usual bread, jam and coffee. Unfortunately the weather was quite bag that day and very windy so we couldn´t spend too much time on deck and chilled in the bar a lounge area passing the time. As this was the last night there was a party organised which was really good fun. We got back to the room somewhere around 4am just in time to get a couple of hours sleep before being called for breakfast at 7.30am. Luckily I was not too hungover and just tired so we packed our bags and ran to the bus station as soon as the bus docked. Thankfully we arrived before the rest of the passangers and got the last two tickets for the bus to Barriloche in Argentina!!
We met Huw and Eoin in the bus station after we got our tickets and as we had some time to kill we spent it wandering around Puerto Montt and checking out their Fish Market.


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