3. Sailing Through The Chilean Inside Passage
The Inside Passage
If you information about the ship. It has been designed in Canada and built in China in 2019. oh, is the Patagonia route. up-and-down, year round. It is eight decks two of them, which are cargo only. you can squeeze 130 large semi trailers there. Also, it has capacity 220 passengers. There are only 110 passenger on this trip. You can travel between 10 to 15 knots depending on the weather. If everything goes right, the trip is 74 hours.
We left Puerto Natales as soon as my bike was on board at 2115. The weather outside was miserable, windy and really cold. The temperature was 3°. We already had our dinners so it was pretty much bedtime time. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I saw through my window lights of a quite large settlement on the shore. was quite confused because there's not supposed to be any towns along the route. But then I was half asleep anyway. I woke up in the morning and the town was still there. And we were not moving. I checked my tracking application on my phone, and I see that we are only 8 km away from the port. the lights and the town I was seeing was Puerto Natales. We simply got out of the port, and drop the anchor outside we cannot go through those narrow channels during the night. Chickens. I got outside on the deck and it was snowing. not enough to stick around but they were snowflakes flying around. This is summer in Patagonia. we got underway mid morning long after sunrise. If there was any sun, that is. this was presumably to synchronize our arrival on the other end.
The channels we were selling through getting progressively more and more narrow. Around noon there was our biggest challenge of the route. The narrowest point of route. The Narrows are only 58 m across and our ship is 25 m. The crew has to deal with the tide, the current and strong wind. To get 150 m long ship through there gets everybody attention. The ship crew kept us informed about all the interesting points along route. Unlike their ground counterparts. All the passengers are up on the decks, watching and keeping fingers crossed that we will make it on the first try. There are normally only two officers on the bridge, but at this time they're more than dozen people there. Everybody was there. And nothing happened. We get through but it was pretty tight squeeze.
I spent most of the daytime outside. was bundled up in several layers. I was cold and the wind was making it even colder. The channels we were selling through where very narrow so we could have a great look at the landscape around. there were dozens and dozens probably hundreds of waterfalls some of them impossible long. The land was pretty bare, and it was no signs of life. There were no animals, not even birds. In the brakes in the clouds, you could see snowcapped mountains everywhere. Also, there were glaciers everywhere you look. The climate here is very harsh.
The crew tried to make the sailing as pleasant and entertaining as possible. every night was a movie night in the dining room, you could sign up for or dance classes. There are some local history presentations, and also a visit to the command bridge. The captain was bragging how many buttons and lights he has there. He might have impressed some people that to me. It looks like a old steam ship. I had definitely many more buttons and lights in my office. It was all cool to see. The crew has schedule two months sailing and one month off. Not that bad. it used to be three months on and one month off before they got new regulations few years back. Everybody was happy about that.
The food on board was all included in the price of the ticket. you have three meals and oh drinks and coffee were available 24 hours a day. No alcohol anywhere on the ship though. Food was mediocre, but it did the job. But I didn't gain any weight on this trip that's for sure.
SAILING DAY 2
The second they started pre-cloudy and windy, but it was getting progressively better. Pretty soon I could see blue skies ahead. The highlight of today was a brief stop at small community of the town Eden. It is situated in the middle of the Patagonia archipelago in the middle of nowhere. it is actually on the island there are no roads to it. only in and out is on the ship. we were told they are only about 50 to 60 people living there full-time. but apparently they have a school, a police force and an army. I wonder who are the suckers who had to work for living. We dropped about dozen people and we picked up a few as well. After 45 minutes we were on our way again. And everybody was back to their routine. I was walking around the ship and hiding from the wind and taking pictures.
The second highlight of the day was a sailing pass and old wreck. Hit the shallow waters of the channel and couldn't move from there. It is there as a reminder, or a treacherous nature those waters. At this point, it was getting sunnier and warmer. And it felt really good.. what enjoying sunshine first time after several weeks of Patagonian “summer”. The landscape has changed, t there were more trees in vegetations. There were also seals, sea lions and dolphins around. And many more birds. There were also many whales around. but they were far away for any decent pictures. as soon as they got closer to them, they just dove down and we haven't seen them again. Are you cool to see them when they surfaced to take a breath. The time was passing by pretty quickly. Before you know it, it was a dinner time fold by a movie night. They were showing Top Gun 2 today. I had to watch it. It is a compulsory viewing for all pilots. Then it was time to download all my pictures, and do some editing. And the day was gone. Before everybody went to bed, captain made an announcement that we will be passing through an open ocean. And he told us it might get pretty rough. Even though it wasn't that windy, there were large swells, which rocked the ship. that explains why they were not too many people present at the dinner.
SAILING DAY 3
Everybody had their routine by now. I was always walking around with my camera and my phone making sure I don't miss any shots. today's highlight where whales. There were dozens of them. But again they were keeping their distance. I got some shots when they were exhaling but nothing spectacular. They were too far away. But I was surprised how many of them were around. And a lot of dolphins and seals again. The weather was awesome, warm and sunny. It felt really great. We went through some narrow channels again, and was interesting to see how the crew navigates bake ship like this with ease. There are some great views of distant, snowcapped mountains and volcanos. It was always something to look at. But five nights on the ship will be enough for me. I can't imagine myself being on a cruise ship. I would probably jump overboard. the nice thing about this sailing was that there was no Internet on the ship and no cell phone service. It was very relaxing.
SAILING DAY 4
We have arrived to our destination, Puerto Mont very early in the morning. I think everybody was ready to get off the ship at this point. It was a beautiful morning. the sun was rising and ships around us where in the fog. No problem with the docking this time. The weather was calm, cold and blue skies. We had a quick breakfast, and everybody was on the deck watching our ship’s docking. Our bags were packed. I went down to the cargo deck to get my bike ready. It was there still securely strapped in front of all other cars and trucks. The guys untied the straps from my bike and I was ready to go. They normally let the passenger go ahead of all the vehicles, but when they saw me sitting on the bike ready, they let me go first. And just like that, the trip was over and I was on dry land again. I quickly navigated to the maze of passageways in the port and soon I was riding on the main road heading to Osorno, my next destination.