Navimag ferry

Chilean Fjords on the Navimag Ferry

4^th November

Today was the day we boarded the Navimag ferry to start out 4 day cruise through the Chilean fjords, this 5* luxury cruise (only joking J it was no way 5*)

So the cruise takes you from more or less the middle of Chile (Puerto Montt) to Puerto Natales in the far south and it takes 3 nights and 4 days. It is supposed to be the best 4 days of your life or worst depending on the weather conditions.

Day 1

We boarded the boat in Puerto Montt lugging all 9kgs of the food we had purchased in Puerto Montt for our Torres Del Paine trek. To our joy we were sharing a cabin with two passengers who had serious body hygiene problems and stunk so bad it made your eyes water.

We retreated to the lounge to chat and think what we could do, their armpits were going to ruin the cruise as we literally could not go in our cabin without our eyes watering.

We befriended a group of English speaking people- a mix from Australia and the UK and Ireland.

It was their idea that we go to the boat liaison and ask to change rooms, after he came to our cabin he was disgusted and moved us, and in this we got a room with no others in it and an upgrade to a private bathroom, excellent!

Sunset on day 1

Day 2

Today we had views to the fjords and in the afternoon started heading out to the open ocean. This was the moment many on the boat had feared, the wide open Pacific Ocean the rolling 3m waves. Duly the ocean started swelling and the boat started rocking! The boat was now split between those asleep and drugged up on sea sickness medicine and those looking green of grey. We however cracked open the wine and staggered around in the bar with the rocking motion.

It was at this point many of us migrated to the bow of the boat to watch us crashing over the ocean waves.

We were in for a long rolling night.

Day 3

Today was glacier day and a chance to relax while sailing through the fjords.

We headed to the Pio XI glacier, Pio XI is important as it is the longest glacier in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica at 65 Km! Also the glacier is advancing, it has advanced over 10 km in the last 70 years.

Sarah at the controls

ICEBERG Ahead!

The glacier covers 1265 square kilometres and that makes it larger than Santiago!

It was truly stunning.

Day 4

Today was a lazy day as we cruised in to Puerto Natales around 4 pm to finish our cruise.

  Tomorrow we head in to the Torres Del Paine national park for a 8 - 10 day trek depending on weather and our ability to trek with all our food and tent etc!