Two Days in a Life at Sea
The world doesn’t stop while on board the Navimag vessel; it just becomes more focused. If sunrise Yoga is your pleasure, then by all means indulge.
Socializing consumes much of the day and the clear, sunny, weather provided a near perfect scenery backdrop for hours of conversations.
It was important to stay ¨up to date¨ with sunscreen layers and Janne won the award for “Most Creative” application.
I know that someone will ask, “Where and what did you eat?” So here’s the visual of the dining room. There were two shifts, one for first class passengers and the second for the rest of us.
The good news was that the food was the same for either sitting and remarkably good.
South American salmon is surprisingly firm, but doesn´t carry the same twinge of bitterness like its North Atlantic cousin.
There were of course “down times’ on the boat, leading to bursts of creativity like Marijn’s post lunch “cup puppet”…
... closely followed by ¨sleepy eyed¨ conversations, and...
… or all out napping.
Just when we thought that the trip was getting routine, the vessel entered the open Pacific Ocean for a ten hour run. This meant that the bow was the perfect undulating launch pad for gaining some “air time”. All you needed to do was jump at the apex and let the boat fall away from underneath. This was great fun until the first mate came up onto the deck, wagging an informative finger, to enlighten us that we were jumping on the roof of the bridge, which wasn’t as fun for the captain as for us.
The next day we passed by a wrecked sugar hauling ship from Uruguay. The story of the grounded vessel is that the captain knew of this spot, where a major rock formation rests only meters below the surface. His circa 1970’s plan was to scuttle the ship on the rock and claim the insurance. The only problem was that the insurance company and the Chilean government were “on to his scheme” so the boat remains, no insurance claims were paid, and he was found guilty of fraud and imprisoned.
Much of the day was spent looking out through the fjords or ahead of the bow.
In the morning briefing we had heard about the tiny town of Puerto Eden, where we would stop to re-supply the population with staples.
Puerto Eden is a fishing town, whose primary means of trade is still bartering for other goods with its fish supply.
All forms of watercraft came to meet with the Navimag ferry …
The world doesn’t stop while on board the Navimag vessel; it just becomes more focused. If sunrise Yoga is your pleasure, then by all means indulge.
Socializing consumes much of the day and the clear, sunny, weather provided a near perfect scenery backdrop for hours of conversations.
It was important to stay ¨up to date¨ with sunscreen layers and Janne won the award for “Most Creative” application.
I know that someone will ask, “Where and what did you eat?” So here’s the visual of the dining room. There were two shifts, one for first class passengers and the second for the rest of us.
The good news was that the food was the same for either sitting and remarkably good.
South American salmon is surprisingly firm, but doesn´t carry the same twinge of bitterness like its North Atlantic cousin.
There were of course “down times’ on the boat, leading to bursts of creativity like Marijn’s post lunch “cup puppet”…
... closely followed by ¨sleepy eyed¨ conversations, and...
… or all out napping.
Just when we thought that the trip was getting routine, the vessel entered the open Pacific Ocean for a ten hour run. This meant that the bow was the perfect undulating launch pad for gaining some “air time”. All you needed to do was jump at the apex and let the boat fall away from underneath. This was great fun until the first mate came up onto the deck, wagging an informative finger, to enlighten us that we were jumping on the roof of the bridge, which wasn’t as fun for the captain as for us.
The next day we passed by a wrecked sugar hauling ship from Uruguay. The story of the grounded vessel is that the captain knew of this spot, where a major rock formation rests only meters below the surface. His circa 1970’s plan was to scuttle the ship on the rock and claim the insurance. The only problem was that the insurance company and the Chilean government were “on to his scheme” so the boat remains, no insurance claims were paid, and he was found guilty of fraud and imprisoned.
Much of the day was spent looking out through the fjords or ahead of the bow.
In the morning briefing we had heard about the tiny town of Puerto Eden, where we would stop to re-supply the population with staples.
Puerto Eden is a fishing town, whose primary means of trade is still bartering for other goods with its fish supply.
All forms of watercraft came to meet with the Navimag ferry …
Even in this tiny outpost of a village, the police bureaucracy maintained its presence, insuring the protocol of the shifting food stuffs.
The mountains of Patagonia are covered in glaciers, even the watchful mountain above Puerto Eden.
After Puerto Eden the vast majority of passengers went inside to nap, read, play cards, or drink. This distraction was broken by the appearance of chunks of ice floating past.
As they grew bigger, arriving with great frequency, squads of camera bearing passenger peered across the bow.
Miles ahead, one of the largest glaciers in South America, 8 kilometers wide by 13 kilometers long, dumped tons of ice into the sea.
At over 400 meters away from the sheer face, the enormity of the glacier dwarfed the perspective of the surrounding mountains and made the ship feel like a tiny cork in the water.
The depth of color added by the blue ice was difficult to crisply capture, from the moving deck of a ship, ...
... so we all stared at the impressive display of the middle to lower end of the light spectrum reflecting off the massive ice surfaces.
Navimag life is a great rarity. There are very few social boundaries to starting up conversations and meeting new people. I wish that the name of this Canadian man was locked away in my brain, because he and his girlfriend (not pictured) were great at instigating interesting conversations throughout the trip and seemed to have an honest interest in everyone.
Overall, the Navimag staff kept the passengers more entertained than expected. Every morning there was a briefing on the day’s journey, complete with anthropological or geological information. Typically, there was an evening activity of movies, more local knowledge presentations, or on this occasion BINGO. Marijn was sure he had the winning card. Little did he know that I actually did and won a bottle of Argentine wine. Unfortunately, it was of the same “mouth wash” quality that we had suffered through already and two-thirds of it couldn’t be given away.
The ship has a more than able crew, led by a very watchful captain.
The entire crew participates in keeping an active management of the ship.
If you’re not navigating, or serving passengers, then as a crew member you are probably painting somewhere on the vessel. Part of the daily “morning announcements” was which section of the ship would be painted before lunch or during afternoon.
The closer and deeper we got into Patagonian waters the tougher the weather became. Initially it was beautiful mix of sun, rain, and strong wind gusts.
Then the weather took a turn, with gusting winds so powerful that eddies of vapor were snatched from the water’s surface, rising as spray bearing wind devils. (It is hard to have a sense of scale in the openness of water, so these spouts were between 10 and 15 meters high.)
At one point the wind was so strong the leeward window only showed water, with the listing of the huge ferry. Dishes crashed in the dining room and Marijn and I took this as our signal to go to the windward rails for pictures, after the ship regained a horizontal plain.
The smarter passengers stayed inside and took video of the two idiots out on the deck, taking pictures of them taking video.
The final maneuver of the trip was through the smallest passageway, only about 30 meters wider than the beam of the ship. If anything happened here we could practically jump to the waiting rocks.
With the navigational squeeze complete, we all headed below deck to pack for our arrival into Puerto Natales.
The Navimag trip from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales is a Chilean “must do” experience. Combining scenic vistas, glaciers, an international passenger list, along with activities, and good food. The Navimag ferry was a great travel vehicle to one of the earth’s great treasures, Patagonia.
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