Chilean Fjords 2012

We spent the better part of a week navigating inside the fjords. There was a piercing chill in the air at the southernmost tip of Patagonia; the water had a grey-milky hue and was thick with glacier silt. Tall mountains with dabs of ice surrounded us from both sides, their peaks lost in the clouds. The silence of the landscape was only broken by the sounds of the boat and the human conversations. The Zodiacs, specially crafted rubber boats for 8-10 persons, were hoisted down into the water every morning for our outings. We had to don special light weight life vests and swipe our room key before getting on the boat. Most passengers wore their free red parkas and from a distance the boat looked like a bowl of poinsettias. Some days we used the Zodiacs to tour the glaciers, others to reach land where buses were waiting for the inland excursions.

Our first foray on the Zodiacs took us to the mouth of the Garibaldi fjord (Garibaldi enjoyed lasting fame as a South American freedom fighter before securing his place in Italian history) where two glaciers seemed to pour out into the water except that the massive rivers of turquoise blue ice stopped vertical at the edge of the mountain slopes as if cut with a giant cleaver. We rode the Zodiacs past rock formations populated with large groups of sea lions basking in the sunless sky. We spotted birds on the crags and the ice floes and marveled at narrow vertical waterfalls. When we came close to the glaciers we stared slack jawed at this wonder of natural geology taking pictures of the color and the immensity of the ice masses. Small scale calving was actively happening before our eyes, boulders of ice crashing into the water raising clouds of fine mist.

The second glacier was Pio XI (this is a Catholic country), a somewhat smaller formation that was receding. A barren beach had formed at one side, where we disembarked in a wet landing with our rubber boots. Shallow rivulets were streaming out from under the ice carrying opaque, opalescent, silty water over pebbly banks. We knelt at the mouth of a small cave with rocks and grey ice but did not venture inside. We were surprised to see a flock of birds on one of the waterfronts; they could have been in Galveston except that all the colors and the temperature were different.

We spent only one day in the open Pacific Ocean; though not as turbulent as the infamous trip around Cape Horn, the boat rolled and swayed as we waddled down the hallways and up the stairs careful to hold to the side bars. Needless to say, the dining room was almost empty the whole day. (Our appetites were undeterred.) The waves rose and crested outside our window all night while we stayed snug under the blankets; less than 24 hours later we were back inside the calm waters of the fjords and were able to take our Scopolamine patches off.