Navimag Ferry and Puerto Montt, Chile
Kara says:
Mini-cruise!!! OK, just a ferry, but a three day trip counts as a cruise. This is a ferry that joins the southern tip of Chile to the rest of the country - there are no roads that connect these, the only way to drive is through Argentina which is apparently a worse option than a three-day ferry trip? I still can't quite believe that it's quicker/more economical to take a ferry than to just drive through Argentina for a bit but maybe there are customs/tax implications. So things move by ferry - cows, horses, cars, random freight. We talked to a truck driver who does the trip from Punta Arenas in the south to Iquique in the north once a month - it's thousands of kilometres, such a stupid shape for a country, they should just swap some land with Argentina to make it a more compact shape. We had a couple of trucks of horses and a truck of calves on our ferry, just out the back, one of the highlights of the day was watching them being fed after our breakfast - see photo of airborne hay making it's way into the horse-truck.
Settled into the very relaxing rhythm of life on board pretty quickly. I decided to get into the spirit of going to sea and grow a beard - see photo of me on deck, beard blowing in the wind. The ferry travels through the fjords of southern Chile, often very narrow, see photo of what looks like a dead end ahead but actually we picked our way through those islands and onwards.
We could go to bridge any time - very cool - we were able to check up on the GPS, radar, chart positions and make sure the crew were keeping us on track. Photo of Karl taking the helm. Most of the time there was one, pretty bored-looking, crew member but when we got to the narrow bits of the route there were five very attentive and slightly anxious-looking crew on the bridge including the captain himself.
Photo of Puerto Eden from the boat, we anchored and some passengers got off. We were travelling through the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park which is about 1.5 million hectares. There are two towns - Puerto Eden and another somewhere else - each with population of 150. That's 300 people in 1.5 million hectares.
Photo of me not playing giant chess, of the little Jesus they provided in our cabin to get us safely through the journey (very comforting when you first arrive and hear talk of "El Golfo"). Karl found a very grafic picture of a sea-sickness sufferer etched into his bunk saying "beware of the gulf". El Golfo de Penas (gulf of pain - due to a bad translation, actually supposed to be rocky gulf) is basically the Pacific Ocean and is followed by a brief foray into the Pacific itself and so it's the exciting part of the trip where you have 6 to 8 metre waves, things jumping off shelves and hurling themselves across the cabin and the crew wisely offering to carry your tray to your table at mealtimes.
Karl says to say the engines died one day. They did. It's true. Suddenly no power, no engines, no movement, nada. Then everything worked again and the captain apologised for an incident with an oil filter and we lived happily ever after. "Thank God it didn't happen in the Golfo" says Karl.
Photo of Karl enjoying a read and a maté on deck.
Then we got to Puerto Montt. Spent an hour or two wandering around, just long enough to realise where it got the nickname of "Muerto Montt", see photos of even the sculptures looking depressed. And photo of a bust of Bernardo O'Higgins himself with some of the Chilean navy in the background - slightly exciting, on the night we arrived, to sail by a submarine that looked like it was on fire/steaming somehow/doing a firedrill/leaching toxic waste/having a really good party.
Mini-cruise!!! OK, just a ferry, but a three day trip counts as a cruise. This is a ferry that joins the southern tip of Chile to the rest of the country - there are no roads that connect these, the only way to drive is through Argentina which is apparently a worse option than a three-day ferry trip? I still can't quite believe that it's quicker/more economical to take a ferry than to just drive through Argentina for a bit but maybe there are customs/tax implications. So things move by ferry - cows, horses, cars, random freight. We talked to a truck driver who does the trip from Punta Arenas in the south to Iquique in the north once a month - it's thousands of kilometres, such a stupid shape for a country, they should just swap some land with Argentina to make it a more compact shape. We had a couple of trucks of horses and a truck of calves on our ferry, just out the back, one of the highlights of the day was watching them being fed after our breakfast - see photo of airborne hay making it's way into the horse-truck.
Settled into the very relaxing rhythm of life on board pretty quickly. I decided to get into the spirit of going to sea and grow a beard - see photo of me on deck, beard blowing in the wind. The ferry travels through the fjords of southern Chile, often very narrow, see photo of what looks like a dead end ahead but actually we picked our way through those islands and onwards.
We could go to bridge any time - very cool - we were able to check up on the GPS, radar, chart positions and make sure the crew were keeping us on track. Photo of Karl taking the helm. Most of the time there was one, pretty bored-looking, crew member but when we got to the narrow bits of the route there were five very attentive and slightly anxious-looking crew on the bridge including the captain himself.
Photo of Puerto Eden from the boat, we anchored and some passengers got off. We were travelling through the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park which is about 1.5 million hectares. There are two towns - Puerto Eden and another somewhere else - each with population of 150. That's 300 people in 1.5 million hectares.
Photo of me not playing giant chess, of the little Jesus they provided in our cabin to get us safely through the journey (very comforting when you first arrive and hear talk of "El Golfo"). Karl found a very grafic picture of a sea-sickness sufferer etched into his bunk saying "beware of the gulf". El Golfo de Penas (gulf of pain - due to a bad translation, actually supposed to be rocky gulf) is basically the Pacific Ocean and is followed by a brief foray into the Pacific itself and so it's the exciting part of the trip where you have 6 to 8 metre waves, things jumping off shelves and hurling themselves across the cabin and the crew wisely offering to carry your tray to your table at mealtimes.
Karl says to say the engines died one day. They did. It's true. Suddenly no power, no engines, no movement, nada. Then everything worked again and the captain apologised for an incident with an oil filter and we lived happily ever after. "Thank God it didn't happen in the Golfo" says Karl.
Photo of Karl enjoying a read and a maté on deck.
Then we got to Puerto Montt. Spent an hour or two wandering around, just long enough to realise where it got the nickname of "Muerto Montt", see photos of even the sculptures looking depressed. And photo of a bust of Bernardo O'Higgins himself with some of the Chilean navy in the background - slightly exciting, on the night we arrived, to sail by a submarine that looked like it was on fire/steaming somehow/doing a firedrill/leaching toxic waste/having a really good party.
You've set the bar pretty high with that beard. I've got a lot of catching up to do this winter..
ReplyDelete