Ushuaia,Punta Arenas and the Chilean Fjords and Glaciers

  After leaving Ushuaia and admiring its situation nestling among the snow capped mountains, we headed south again and soon joined the Beagle Channel, named after HMS Beagle with Captain Robert Fitzroy in command. He led a surveying expedition to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in the 1830´s accompanied by a young Charles Darwin.

Heading west along this narrow channel the weather worsened to a force 8 headwind with rain so we withdrew to our cabin to watch the passing landscape from our sheltered balcony. In between the mountains we passed 3 notable glaciers, the first we had ever seen. These apparently were nothing special but we thought they were awesome and commented how blue the ice was.

  Next morning early Aurora dropped anchor off Punta Arenas (Sandy Point) our first port in Chile and the southernmost city on the South American mainland. It used to be one of the busiest ports in the world when operating as a coaling station for ships going around the Horn but this stopped abruptly in 1914 when the Panama Canal opened. Capital of Magellan´s Province the city of 120,000 people has a relatively dry climate but suffers incessant winds in the summer months. 18C is apparently a high temperature and not often achieved. We had about 12C with a considerable windchill.

  We were ashore soon after 0900 on our tour, and were taken inland and up the mountain in our coach. The roads were unsealed as soon as we left the city and as we climbed higher the views across the Straits of Magellan became magnificent. At the Ski Centre (no snow!) we all transferred to the chairlift to go higher and it was so cold! The wind blew right up our trouserlegs! From the top we started our trek down the mountain and through the forest-very steep in places and quite muddy on occasions. It was slow going because of the back stragglers but we made it back to the Ski Centre in one and a quarter hours. We were then rewarded with hot chocolate and cake. Great!

  We were then taken back into the city and dropped in Plaza de Armas, the main square to roam around on our own. This square has a wonderful central bronze statue of  Magellan and at one corner of the Plaza is the impressive Hotel Jose Nogueira, once the home of one of the city´s wealthy matrons, Sarah Braun. Apart from the Town Hall and some museums, the rest of the centre was architecturally disappointing so we shopped for our fridge magnet and for some local wine in the supermarket and returned to the ship for lunch. At 1700 the tenders were recovered, the anchor was weighed and we set off north towards Puerto Montt . We don´t reach it until Sunday when we hope it will be warmer! On the way we will be viewing at least 2 major glaciers.

  The next morning we were still surrounded by mountains but returned to our normal sea routine, even our walk-only 3 miles today because of the cold! Later on in the afternoon we slowed as we approached the Amalia Glacier and entered floating ice before stopping less than a mile from this amazing wall of ice. This glacier is retreating slowly and talking to someone who saw it 4 years ago it has indeed moved back significantly. Aurora turned round completely and sat there for about an hour as we admired this wonderful natural phenomena. The sun appeared occasionally to light up the ice and would then disappear as the rain passed over again. We noted that the sea temperature was only 6C!

  Later that evening we entered another arm of the fjords, saw a number of seals and viewed another glacier, the Bruho Glacier, not quite as impressive as Amalia, just somewhat smaller but here the sun did not shine for us.

  After another night navigating between the mountains we were awoken by the Captain at 0800 saying we were approaching the Pio XI Glacier, the largest one outside Antarctica. Well wrapped up we ventured outside into the driving rain to see this magnificent sight ahead of us. This glacier´s ice face was at least 30 metres high and 2.4 miles across the side of the fjord. We were told it also extends over 40 miles back from the sea. Awesome! There was hardly any sea ice here so the rescue boat was lowered to take a ship´s photographer away to take photos of the ship with the glacier. Apparently this glacier is still growing every year-I wonder how the global warming lobby explain this!

  After an hour here Aurora turned round and headed back down one magnificent fjord after another for the rest of the day. Despite the rain it was so wonderful. As a respite from all these great sights we spent 45 minutes at 1400 listening to a popular classical concert in the theatre given by our resident pianist for this leg, Julian Jacobson.

Cruising does give you so much impressive choices!

  Late afternoon saw us reaching the Pacific Ocean again and a 4m swell and turning north towards the warmer weather. Saturday  morning we regain the shelter of the fjords that the Chileans call canals, ready for our next port on Sunday, Puerto Montt.