Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

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Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Our last stop in Chile is Chacabuco. The day was rainy and rather cold, so Bruce ventured forth on tour armed with parka, umbrella, and, Julie, his waterproof shoes you helped pick out for him. The tender ride, although sort of wet, was, at least, smooth. Most people who hadn’t booked tours stayed aboard rather than go out in the rain. I had a beautiful view of the shore from our room where I stayed and wrote the last blog

Bruce returned about one thirty with a good report about the tour. His guide said that one could experience all the seasons in one day in this area. At times the sun appeared, allowing the first glimpse of the snow-capped mountains we were to see. The passage into the port is narrow, and the area had its own climate. Sometimes the fog set in and obscured everything, sending a misty spray over the town. Then, a moment later, the sun would appear clearing everything away again. Since the ship was anchored, we did turn and I was able to see different parts of the shore during the morning. My favorite view was of the water falls flowing down the mountain to the sea. Nearby the falls was a salmon farm. The day progressed with this beautiful scenery to look at and know that this was just the beginning of the fjord cruising.

As we were leaving, the Captain came on the PA and gave his daily report. This time he told us that we were coming into some bad weather because we have to go back to the north into the Pacific Ocean and south in the ocean rather than nice, quiet channels like the one we were in because the channel dead ends down south. We are getting the tail end of a storm. Not heavy rain, but strong winds and gusts will be with us all night. He told us to “batten down the hatches,” if you will. Take everything off shelves in the bathroom and in our stateroom and watch our step after 9 or 9:30 when we get back in the ocean. We would arrive at the entrance to the channel in the morning about 7 or so. Well, we did as we were told, cleared everything we could, and put the amaryllis (which is pregnant, by the way,) in the waste basket. After watching “Duplicity” on our TV, the waves began to grow, and the swells grew even higher. Evidentially, we were heading into the weather so the motion was from toe to head, as our bed was parallel with the ship and our feet pointed forward. This time we firmly shut the bathroom sliding door, and tried to get to sleep, not an easy task. We slept fitfully, occasionally waking to banging of something outside our room, and finally with crashing glass as a wine and a champagne glass fell from our shelf where we thought we had put them in a safe place. Fortunately, they broke in large pieces since they weren’t fine crystal.

It was still rocking in the morning at nine when we woke up, and it is now one o’clock and we are just entering the channel. Finally, the seas are settling down, and we can walk strait again. We will spend the day cruising here, but this evening we have to return to the Ocean again to go around more islands before coming back to the inside passage. The Captain says it won’t be as bad tonight, thank heaven! If you look at a map of Chile, you will see the area is full of channels, islands, and fjords much like Alaska, but even more so. Sometime this afternoon we will arrive at our first glacier, and it has its own climate. It is rainy and cold today with the temp in the 40’s and 50’s.

The highlight of the morning was the introduction of both the Ice Captain, an expert on maneuvering the Antarctic waters, who will help our Captain through Antarctica, and an excellent Explorations speaker, a geologist who has spent fifty years going to Antarctica and studying all over the continent. His credentials are extensive - from a degree from Minnesota to having both a glacier and a mountain named after him (no easy task with his name, John Splettstoesser.) Anyway, he is an excellent speaker and had fantastic slides of everything Antarctic. There are two other speakers yet to give talks - one biologist, and another a geographer. They will all speak more than once, so we should have a pretty good idea of what is going on down there. Right now the cruise is being narrated on the outside areas and on TV by our South American travel expert who will be with us the whole trip.

I won’t put any pictures on this entry as the signal is very low, and may not work. Hopefully, I will have some good pictures as we continue south.

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