Not Punta Arenas, Chile

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Tuesday 2nd February, 2016. Not Punta Arenas, Magallanes, Chile



Famous last words in the previous blog! We arrived at Punta Arenas (at least we were off the coast of the town) pretty early. D went to have a sniff as usual and saw the pilot on the telephone on the bridge wing about 7.15. Returning to the cabin shortly thereafter he was surprised to see that a tender notice had been printed and put up stating that the tender operation into Punta Arenas would run every 20 minutes until 4.30 pm. This was all a bit odd as this was NOT a tender stop - we were supposed to birth here. However, although the tender guys were hanging around waiting to put out the infrastructure - no tenders were released from the ship. We went and had a posh breakfast while we waited. By now rumour had spread that we were going to tender into this port and a queue had started to develop at the Shore Excursions Desk, which is where the tender tickets are distibuted.



About 9 am when we should have docked or tenders commenced the lovely Olga (Guest Relations Manager) came on over the ship's PA system with a mixed message as to why we couldn't dock and that negotiations were in place to seek to tender. Two further messages, effectively announcing no progress, were made and then at 10.20 the captain came on to say the sea would be too high by late afternoon to tender and following consultation with 'Head Office' and the Port Authorities the stopover was aborted. We would shortly proceed to Ushuaia arriving early morning rather than late lunchtime. So no Chile - hence the title of this blog.



After a few hours we entered a very interesting stretch of the Magellan strait with excellent views of periglacial features, glaciers and snow fields which everyone enjoyed. M took the opportunity to experiment some more with her new selfie stick - so plenty of pictures of M and everyone under the sun. We met our friends Sandra and John on the deck and we filled them in on the formation of all these fantastic hanging glaciers, pyrammidal peaks and all the rest. This conversation was overheard by a geologist called Phil. With Phil's input on the geology side and M & D's on the geography side it became a very interesting sail through the Chilean Fjords.



At 4 pm, when we should have been leaving Punta Arenas we took pictures of the sea which was pretty flat and the surface of the ship's swimming pool which was smooth as glass. So, the mystery remains as to why we didn't stop in Chile (where were the high seas that were going to make it impossible to tender and too dangerous to dock?). A little bit more BS we think. However, we understand our passports were stamped by Chilean Immigration - even though we never went there! We continued to enjoy the stunning scenery, sailing along the Cockburn Canal and into the Brecknock Canal pretty much until it was time to go down and get ready for dinner. We had just turned into the Beagle Channel and interestingly the Arcadia came past us in the other direction (wonder if she will get to dock at Punta Arenas?). It stayed light until well after 9 pm as we are so far south, but that was not going to be sufficient for us to sail through the Beagle Channel in daylight - which was going to be one of the highlights of the trip for us.



When we arrived at dinner John and Sandra came over to thank us for a really interesting and enjoyable afternoon on deck. After dinner M went to meet John and Phillipa to listen to Rob from the Show Team play an acoustic guitar cabaret performing songs through the decades from Cecelia to Smooth Criminal. He was pretty good.

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