A voyage at sea

So we had decided some time ago that rather than either flying or bus-ing for days on end down to southern Patagonia that we would like to take the boat.  Navimag sails once a week down the coast of Chile, in and out of fjiords and channels, taking around 4 days to make the voyage. 

We also decided against another tedious bus journey to get to Puerto Montt, the boat departure point in Chile.  Instead we went via the "Cruz de Andino", the Andean Crossing, traversing a series of lakes, with bus connections in between,  passing through amazing national park scenery. 

This was my favourite part, crossing lake Llanquihue in Chile, with Vulcan Osorno as a backdrop.

We also stopped to drop off some passengers in a little place called Puerto Vargas, which looked stunning as sun set approached and a rainbow appeared. 

We decided this was a really cool way to travel, but sadly the opportunities to replicate it are few and far between (although perhaps a Manchester to London voyage via the Humber and Thames estuaries has potential??).

Anyway, that was quite a diversion, back to Navimag.  It used to be strictly a container ship, but over the years has adapted to interest from tourists to take passengers as well. We weren´t really sure what to expect, had heard tales good and bad, but we had a fantastic time.

We had a cosy little cabin, sharing with two others, with a little porthole looking out to sea.  The day of departure was fantastic weather, bright sunshine and really warm, giving us splendid views of the volcanos around Puerto Montt and an amazing sunset that night.  This felt like a real bonus as one of the warnings we’d read was that it could rain for days of end, with cloud so low it was impossible to see anything beyond the boat.

The weather did deteriorate thereafter, but did not detract too much from our enjoyment.  One real highlight was a stop at a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere, Puerto Eden, in a national park reminiscent of Scottish peat bogs, with a rainfall of around 8 meters a year. 

That's Navimag in the background.  We had to keep our life jackets on the whole time we were walking round Puerto Eden!

Another highlight was sailing right up to a glacier, Pio XI, which was incredible viewed from the sea (see next post). 

And I also just enjoyed sailing in and out of the various fjiords and channels, sometimes observed from the Bridge when the weather was too bad to be outdoors (I really liked being on the Bridge, I think it gave me a feeling of self-importance being close to the Captain!).  Some lucky people on board spotted killer whales, but I was happy to see dolphins, sea lions and a seal.