Today is Thursday, February 13, 2014. We are cruising from Wulaia Bay to Cape Horn. It’s a gorgeous morning, with some clouds, but they are only hovering at the top of the highest snow-capped mountains. It is just idyllic today.
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| Wet clothes! |
The past couple of days have been truly exciting. After being totally drenched from whaling we hung up our clothes to dry—miraculously completed in about three hours. It took us hot showers to warm up, and Ben headed off to buy some waterproof trousers; John figured he’d suffer a bit and frankly didn’t need to buy any because it never got so wet as the whaling trip again. Nonetheless the weather has not been great till today.
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| Southernmost point of actual South America before the islands begin Pope John Paul came and said a mass here. There's a cross on the hill. |
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| Garibaldi Glacier, breaks off a piece |
After the whale-watching, we spent the afternoon cruising down the channel back to the Straits and then turned toward the Pacific. Tuesday night about midnight we entered the Pacific and felt the rough seas—enough to make going to sleep seem like being a baby in a rocking cradle. We had a couple of seminars about glaciers that evening and a very good dinner. We introduced Heidi to Aracheon liquor--a local Chilean digestif.
The wines each night have been good, not great, though never inferior. They have ranged from Montes sauvignon blanc and chardonnay to a Medella Real malbec last night. Wine at lunch as well as dinner, of course. Lunch is a buffet of salads and hot foods too. Yesterday’s for instance was a choice of lasagne or pork spare ribs—braised Chilean style, not barbecued States-fashion.
(You have to be careful when talking about “American” in South America because South Americans consider themselves American and refer to America, as in the United States, as ‘the States’.)
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| Tens of thousand of years old ice, with Johnny Walker |
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| Glacier Alley |
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| Smoothly worn by the glaciers |
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| Pia Glacier |
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| Pia Glacier |
Yesterday was also our day for glacier watching. We headed up one channel from the Beagle Canal, as the main strip of water around here is known, to the Garibaldi glacier, which is a merger of two glaciers with a brown moraine between the two halves—it holds the dirty secrets of the marriage of the two glaciers! You get a chance to see bits of glacier fall off, creating great amounts of spray. But you don’t hear the sound of the break for about five to 10 seconds after the event. Some of the group, Alastair and Jasmine included, decided to take a hike to a waterfall. Part of the trek was being ‘baptized’ in a waterfall running probably at 40F (6C) high up in the mountains. They were soaked when they got back.
In the afternoon we disembarked to get close to the Pia glacier. It also cracked and creaked dropping pieces into the bay as we watched and listened. Of the two glaciers, the Garibaldi is the more impressive, but we were able to watch Pia from land rather than from the boat in the rain. We also hiked up to a vantage point that was really rough going. The paths are rudimentary because this is a national reserve and the walkways are limited to single file slices through the grass and low trees. The rocks, of course, are slick with moss and water. You don’t always know whether your footfall is deep mud or rock, so you come back with wettish, and if it is you get drenched feet. The vistas are magnificent and make the cold wet feet a worthy fee for the views.
Last night we anchored at Wulaia Bay and this morning disembarked to see the old ruins of an estancia and the site where English explorers encountered the Yanguan people. These folk are rather interesting because they lived in this inhospitable climate naked, didn’t eat cooked food even though they had fire, and spoke a primitive language that now has one remaining speaker.
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