Heading south into winter from Brazil the temperatures quickly dipped. As the days grew short, I managed to grab an awesome picture of the sunset off the Argentine Coast.
I had regained much energy by the time we entered the Strait of Magellan, the highlight of the trip for me. It took us two days to cross the Strait, though it took Magellan over two weeks. Entering from the Atlantic we saw a vast flat empty land, with some ice but mainly brown reminding me of pictures from Greenland. This was cold and boring until we reached Punta Arenas for an overnight anchorage. The current strong and we dragged anchor, but I enjoyed looking at a large city in a desolate countryside through binoculars. I really wished we had made a port call to walk around, but we had to continue. The next day was one to remember, with dramatic views of mountains, ice, glaciers, penguins, and the circle of life.
We entered a narrow channel with freezing mist, but got to see the southern most point of South American mainland, with only patagonia and the Drake Passage on our left to separate ourselves from Antarctica. We are also able to see tiny Magellenic Penguins enjoying their penguin lives. After hours of majestic beauty, we literally could take a picture anywhere and see something good, we were joined by a pod of Orcas. It was cute at first with thoughts of Free Willy in our head, but then we saw them hunting seals, a truly terrific sight. Seals were trying to escape, but couldn’t make it... it was just like the Planet Earth series on the port side of the ship. After a frozen day we looked forward to my favorite port stop in Valparaiso, Chile.
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