CHILEAN FJORDS, AMALIA GLACIER, AND CANAL SARMIENTO--Thursday and Friday, December 5-6, 2013

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SAILING ALONG THE CHILEAN FJORDS THROUGH CANAL SARMIENTO AND THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. Thursday and Friday December 5 and 6, 2013



Very overcast, rainy and foggy, both days.

We got up late this morning since we rocked all night and we were tired from the motion of the ship plus an outside door kept banging again with every sway.

If you look at a map of the country of Chile, from roughly the 40^th parallel south, or down ½ of the country, you will notice that there are hundreds of islands large and small that make up the coastline. Between these islands and the very narrow mainland are a series of channels and straits that allow marine travel protected from the rough Pacific Ocean currents and winds. These islands were formed from the clashing of tectonic plates pushing them up. They are mainly uninhabited or very sparsely inhabited and are part of a series of Chilean National Reserves.

We spent a lot of time during these two days of travel, in the ship’s 9^th floor Crow’s Nest where we had a 180 degree view of the mostly treeless islands and glacial fjords. The Location Director kept up an ongoing patter about the history and what we were seeing outside the windows. Several times the ship had to thread its way carefully through narrows that challenged the skill of the pilot on board. Apparently, the area is a graveyard for many ship wrecks, one you could easily see, was wrecked in 1940 due to a miscommunication over the direction to turn where the word “right” was used to mean correct. Since that wreck, “port” and “starboard” are standard usage for ship directions instead of right and left.

When we got adjacent to the Amalia Glacier, during breakfast time, the ship stopped and got fairly close to it and then the Captain turned this big ship 360 degrees so all on ship could have a look. The glacier is approximately 2 miles across at the base. About 2:30 that day (December 6^th) it started to rain really hard and it continued raining for the rest of the day.

When we weren’t in the Crow’s nest looking at the mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, seabirds (mostly petrels), we read in the library, napped in our cabin, Valerie played the slots in the casino, and we basically recovered from 3 days going full-tilt.

When we thought most people would be at the formal dinner, we went to the self-serve laundry room and did 2 loads of laundry, mostly dirty from the first cruise. It is only $2.00 to wash and $1.00 to dry is the good news. The bad news is that there are only 4 washers and 4 dryers stacked on top of each other for the 1400 people aboard and apparently there have been times when people almost came to blows over their use. The soap is automatically dispensed with the push of a button into your wash load which is a neat way to handle it.

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Comments

[Brian]

glacier
Hello ladies, Just caught up with this blog, glaciers are amazing eh? Hans and I touch one on the south island of New Zealand, it was surprisingly dirty! We are off to India next month and after that Hans intends to start planning a trip to the good old USA, so don't be surprised if we drop in to say cooee. LOL Keep the good work up re the blog, and your next big adventure is???????. Cheers, Brian.

[RamblingRosies]

next adventure
We leave Feb. 21 for 40+ days in South Africa on a RV tour. Valerie will be driving a manual shift on the WRONG side of the road. A bit of a challenge.