2. Ferry Nightmare
Ferry Nightmare
The first half of the trip is done. The plan now is somehow to get from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires and then to Brazil. There are only few ways how to get there. Patagonia is a huge piece of real estate but they're basically only two roads which link north and south. You can take Ruta #3 along the Atlantic coast. It is 3,000 km long and by all accounts it is an uninspiring, boring and windy. I'm not interested in any of that. Then you can take Ruta 40. That road is bad, landscape is boring and it is extremely windy there. That is the route I took on the way down. The option number three is the easiest and the most interesting. I can take a ferry on the West Coast. He takes three days and three nights on the ship sailing through canals and passages of the West Coast of Chile. If everything goes right. Also, I need to have a big inspection done on my bike and the ferry spits me out 100 km from BMW dealer. Perfect. The ferry it is.
There are no ferry offices anywhere. Everything is done online. Booking myself was pretty straightforward. This is mainly a cargo ferry with number of cabins for passengers. There are a few options you can choose from. You can have a cabin with eight beds, four beds or you can have a cabin to yourself. It is priced accordingly. The cheapest option is $400 and a cabin to yourself is $2100. I don't feel like sharing such a small space with strangers, so I book the entire cabin for myself. I got an email back with a receipt and everything is good. But I have my bike with me, and there is no place online where I can book and pay for the bike. Make a long story short, it took 10 days and 15 emails to sort this out. Nobody was replying to my emails or the messenger they have set up online. Extremely poor PR. Also, I have changed my departure. By coincidence, I was in town when the ferry was inbound and couldn't dock because of high winds. I could understand that as the winds were howling over 80 km/h. The ship dropped the anchor a few kilometres outside of the port, waiting for the wind to die down. It took entire day until they could come to the port. That's created a domino effect, and all future departures were postponed. I didn't need that much time further south, that's why I changed my departure to one week earlier. All is good, right? Not so fast, grasshopper.
I was in Punta Arenas on my way north to Puerto Natales, which is the departure point of the ferry. I got an email saying that ferry couldn't dock due to high winds again and the departure is postponed again by another two days. Normally I wouldn't care because I don't have any fixed schedule and if I book my accommodation, I do it the night before. But because of the fixed ferry schedule, I had to book an accommodation on the departure point and arrival point. But most importantly, I have a maintenance appointment at the BMW dealer. And I had to change all of those again for the second time. PITA. Luckily, I was able to change all the dates with no issues.
I finally arrived to Puerto Natales, the departure point of the ferry. The departure procedures, was not clear, so I was there very early just to make sure I have enough time for everything. The ferry is huge, it can take 130 trucks plus cars, motorbikes and 220 passengers. Vehicles go to the collection yard, where every single one of them has to be inspected, photographed and documented. Then all of them have to go through the customs. They're only two people for all of that. To say they are overwhelmed is a gross understatement. The customs is separate and it takes only about 10 minutes. But the rest of the procedure takes a few hours to complete. A complete shit show. The ferry employee drive all vehicles on board themselves. Even the motorbikes. The company procedure… You give him the keys and they drive your bike on the ship and of the ship into the collection yard on the other side and you will pick it up there. Pretty simple, right? I wasn't too crazy about somebody else riding my bike, but I didn't have a choice. I gave them my key and explained how to start the bike. Most of the bikes in Patagonia are BMWs so I expected them to have plenty of experience with those bikes. Still, I had an uneasy feeling leaving my bike in somebody else's hand. Let’s keep my fingers crossed.
I left my bike in the collection yard and went to the passenger checking which is at a different place. It is a small room used by one of the hotels as a presentation room. Clearly not large enough to accommodate all the passengers. At the end, half of the passengers were standing as there were not enough seats for everybody there. This was at 8 PM in the evening and scheduled departure was for 5 o'clock in the morning. It will be a long night.
I'm tracking the inbound ferry on a marine traffic app on my phone. I see that the ferry has stopped outside of the port. That's not good. 30 minutes later, we have been told that the captain doesn't want to dock the ship because of the high winds. Again. I'm looking outside the windows and there are not even white caps on water and the weather station is showing 10 km/h wind. If they cannot dock the ship in this wind, they should not be driving the ferry. Next update will be in one hour, and most probably won't be able to dock the ship for another day. The problem is that all the passengers already booked out of their hotels, and the spaces in this town are extremely limited. This is turning out to be a shit show. We get another announcement after 90 minutes, telling us that the captain has decided to try it. I don't get it as the winds are almost calm.
Anyway, the ship came in docked with no problems. They took us with the buses on the ship before they even start unloading the cargo. It is past midnight by now. They put us all in the dining room as our rooms were being cleaned up after the previous passengers. We finally got to our cabins at 2 o'clock in the morning.
The plan was to depart 5 o'clock in the morning. When I woke up at 7 o'clock in the morning, the truck are still rolling of the ship. The means we won't be leaving anytime soon as we have to load all the northbound trucks in cargo. Well, I am on the ship I have my bed and they I feed me, so all is good. I think. Sometimes in the morning the captain told us that he doesn't know when we are going to leave. Great. The reason for delay is late checking and customs, we were told. I smell BS. From what I've seen so far the customs where the fastest portion of the checking by far. There is not too much I can do. I can see the collection yard from the ship and it is still full of trucks. My bike and 10 other ones are still there.
There's not too much to do so I explore the ship. I make sure that I know my evacuation route, where do life rafts are and how to operate them, where are the lifeboats and where is the kitchen. You know, the important stuff.
Late afternoon, the pace of loading started to pick up. All trucks and trailers are being loaded on the ship. I am keeping my eye on my bike and it is still in the corner of the collection yard together with the other ones. After a few hours the yard is empty except my bike. That's not good. I have this uneasy feeling in my stomach again. All other bikes and everything else in the yard is gone and the ship is clearly preparing for departure. It is time for action.
I got hold of one of the ferry people on board and told them that my bike is still on shore. He took me down the cargo deck to the loadmaster. He told me that my bike doesn't start but didn't say what to do or what is going to happen. Shit. I'm immediately thinking that my battery is dead. That would be be a bad news, but I would push the bike on board in that case. I run off the ship through the boarding ramp to the collection yard. All the employees are just sitting or standing around, marvelling under the job well done. I asked them who has the key for my bike. Nobody knows. I ran to the office, and there is the lady who runs the operation. She doesn't speak word of English. But I understand when she tries to tell me that they cannot start the bike. OK I got it, but where is the key? In the bike, she tries to tell me. Where in the bike? My key is not actually key it is a keyless fob. I grabbed the lady and literally drag her to yard with me. The fob was in the envelope attached to the bike. I press the ignition button, waiting for the worst. But the bike lights up and all looks good. I press the start button and the bike happily comes to life. All looks good. I turned to the yard manager and ask what was the problem? She just shrugs and walks away. WTF? I open the envelope and it is pretty clear right away what was the problem. To start the bike you have to have the fob within 2 m of the bike. Then you can start the ignition and turn the bike on. You do that by pressing ignition button and the start button and voilà. Not exactly a starship technology. However, the fob has a fold out key. That is used to unlock and remove the seat underneath which are fuses and bikes electronics. So those geniuses couldn't find an ignition to put the key in and start the bike. Instead they found the lock which unlocks the seat, thinking that is the ignition. No bike has a system like that. When it didn't start, they just put a key back in the envelope and left it there. I'm not sure what would happen if I was not keeping my eye on my bike. I would hate to think they would probably leave it behind.
My bike is running and is ready to go now. I race through the collection yard and on the loading pier. It looks like everybody is just waiting for me and pointing which way to go. I get to the rear of the ship and ride on the ramp to the cargo deck. There are already three guys waiting for me with the straps in their hand, ready to secure my bike. I stopped the bike and the ships ramp is already being closed. I am literally the last thing on the ship. We are on the way five minutes later. I stay with my bike until it's properly strapped. I don't trust anybody with my bike at this point. This was way too close for my comfort.
There is nothing good I can say about booking or the ground handling procedure of the trip. Their communication is all but not existent. My review will reflect all that and it wont be pretty. I only hope that the sailing will be much different.