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Published: February 13th 2023
Cruising the Chilean Fjords
Not Mountains in the American Sense of the Term Because They Are Only a Few Meters High, but There Is Snow on the PeaksBy the time I had finished coffee in my cabin and had made my way to the Lido Café for breakfast on Thursday, January 26, 2023, the ship already had made its way into one of the Chilean fjords. So just what is a fjord? The Oxford English Dictionary says, "a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs, as in Norway and Iceland, typically formed by submergence of a glaciated valley," while Wikipedia says, "a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier." The common threads in the several definitions I examined seems to be long, narrow, deep and glaciated. Over the course of the next 48 hours or so, we would see many fjords as we passed Laguna San Rafael National Park, Torres del Paine National Park and Alacalufes National Reserve on our journey to Punta Arenas, Chile.
Midafternoon found MS Volendam arriving at the foot of Fjordo Glacier, at least that’s what the daily program says. Since fjiordo translates from Spanish to English as fjord, that would mean that we saw the fjord glacier. Okay…. Regardless, it is quite impressive, but I am told, “You ain’t seen nothin yet. Just wait
Cruising the Chilean Fjords
Note the Blueness of the Ice that Is Still Under Enormous Pressure in the Center, Bottom of the Fjordo Glacier until we get to Antarctica” One of the fascinating things I saw (and learned about) in Iceland in September/October 2022 was the blueness of some portions of the glacial ice. According to U.S. National Park Service Glacier Bay web site, “Blue is the color of pure glacier ice, compact with few air bubbles, since the air is squeezed out from the weight of the ice. Pure ice has the properties of minerals. Like sapphires, glacial ice reflects the blue colors of the light spectrum, so beautiful blue color reaches our eyes. Glacial ice mostly looks white, since it is typically jagged and worn from exposure. Glacial ice can also look black and brown from the rock and debris plucked up by the ice in its journey down the mountainside and incorporated into the flowing glacier.” The docent in Iceland related the same notion and said the ice becomes whiter as the pressure on the ice (the weight of the glacier) lessens and the ice is exposed to and absorbs air.
Later in the afternoon, we passed the
Captain Leonidas shipwreck. Interestingly,
Captain Leonidas was intentionally wrecked by her captain in an ill-fated, unsuccessful insurance fraud scheme. On April 7,
1968,
Captain Leonidas, a bulk cargo freighter, was loaded with sugar as it passed through Messier Channel, Chile. The captain’s plan was that he could offload the sugar, sink the ship and claim the loss of the cargo, asserting that it had dissolved in the water. Unfortunately for him, the inept captain (I could not find his name) only grounded the ship. His scheme was discovered, he went to prison and lost his captain’s license for life. Sweet justice in the end.
During the morning of Friday, January 27, 2023, we sailed past Brujo Glacier and entered Sarmiento Channel on our way to the Straits of Magellan, as I had learned in grade school, but also properly called the Strait of Magellan (in Spanish, Estrecho de Magallane). The Straits of Magellan, located in southern Chile, was discovered and first traversed in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan (after whom the feature is named) and separates mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. Before the construction of the Panama Canal, there were only three ways to navigate between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The longest is the Drake Passage which is the often-stormy, open sea route
Cruising the Chilean Fjords
Uncle Larry with the Brujo Glacier in the Background around Cape Horn frequently fraught with gale-force winds and icebergs. Along with the Straits of Magellan, another shorter and more sheltered route is the Beagle Channel. It was discovered by a dog named Snoopy … No, no, no, Larry!
Saturday, January 28, 2023 found us in Punta Arenas, Chile, the largest city south of the 46th parallel south, and, due to its location, the coldest coastal city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Latin America. Located on the Brunswick Peninsula north of the Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas was originally established by the Chilean government in 1848 as a penal colony to assert sovereignty over the Strait. During the remainder of the 1800s, Punta Arenas grew in size and importance due to the increasing maritime traffic and trade travelling to the west coasts of South and North America. Since its founding Chile has used Punta Arenas as a base to defend its sovereignty claims in the southernmost part of South America. This led, among other things, to the Strait of Magellan being recognized as Chilean territory in the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina. The geopolitical importance of Punta Arenas has remained high in the 20th and
Cruising the Chilean Fjords
Approaching the Fjordo Glacier 21st centuries because of its logistic importance in accessing the Antarctic Peninsula.
Punta Arenas is one of the most southerly ports in the world, serving as an Antarctic gateway city for scientists and tourists alike. Even at the height of tourist season, Punta Arenas is quite non-descript and mundane. I took the shuttle into town and visited the shopping (souvenir) mall at the shuttle terminus, where I was able to find only one refrigerator magnet for Antarctica and, of course, bought it without hesitation. I wandered the downtown area and just happened to discover a pub where I found a bottle of Patagonian stout that rivaled the best stouts I have ever had. Back to the mall, back on the shuttle and back to the ship you go, hi-ho!
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