SAILING THE ALBERTO DE AGOSTINI NATIONAL PARK
The Captain’s announcement yesterday promised an interesting diversion to see another glacier, as recommended by our two Chilean pilots. He told us that he expected us to be there some time between 7am and 8am, which meant setting the alarm for 6:30am.
Bleary-eyed and hoping that we hadn’t missed anything significant, we headed up on deck just before 7am, as we turned right, down a channel; a slight diversion from our route, to where we hoped to be seeing the glacier.
At that time in the morning, it was quiet up on deck, but as time went on, more and more folks started appearing. It was cool, and windy by the railings, and it had clearly been raining. The forward decks were closed because of the wind. The portholes had remained battened down, and we’d been told to expect some rough sailing overnight, although it didn’t seem to have been that bad (or if it was, we both slept through it).
As we left the remnants of a cloudy rainstorm behind us, we were treated to a magnificent rainbow, and the morning light on the surrounding mountains was particularly beautiful. In fact, I got some fantastic photographs of lofty, snow-covered mountaintops, and dramatic crags as we sailed, which is just as well, because as we did so, the weather started to deteriorate again.
Roughly halfway down the channel we were following, the weather became so bad that the Captain decided enough was enough, and turned us around. In an announcement soon after, he explained that the high winds, deep swell and poor visibility, made the proposition untenable, and since his priority is the safetly of the vessel and the passengers, it simply wasn’t a risk worth taking.
So, still tired from the early start, we went back to the cabin to have another hour’s kip… and because we’d put the ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, managed to miss the man coming around opening the portholes. Fortunately, after a call to Reception, they were opened for us soon afterwards.
The rest of the day was mostly taken up by quality ‘deck-time’. Once we’d returned to our original route, the weather remained windy but dry and mostly sunny throughout the rest of the morning and the afternoon. There is something extremely satisfying about watching mountains pass by at a leisurely rate – high, rugged and dramatic mountains at that. The spectacular scenery just kept coming, punctuated by sightings of whales, jumping seals and the occasional condor, gliding silently, majestically, through the higher currents.
The good news is; the scenery is set to continue throughout the next two days, as we navigate the English Narrows Passage and the Darwin and Moraleda Canal Passage, en route North, towards our next port-of-call, Puerto Montt, where we are due to arrive on Wednesday.
