Saturday, January 27

We were sailing up a fjord when I woke up. Arrived at Puerto Chacabuco (a really teeny town...barely a hamlet...maybe the size of Ivy) about 9:30 am. John and I went on the "Cruising the Austral Channels" tour which was excellent. On shore, everyone else had to walk from the tender dock to the catamaran, but I (and John) got a ride in the local hotel’s van. The boat was lovely. Downstairs were all airline type seats, but we stayed up on the main deck in the lounge which had nice couches and tables and huge windows. It got somewhat cloudy as we went, but was still totally spectacular! Waterfalls and snow-capped volcanoes on every side.

Once we got down to the Islas Cinquo Hermanos Natural Reserve area, they began passing around wine and other drinks, then several rounds of canapes, then little pizza-like things, then skewers of chicken and beef, then chicken empanadas, then large triangular beef pastries (also containing onions and a big chunk of hard boiled egg an an olive complete with pit), then little candies, and more drinks. Meanwhile a young couple in costume did native dances, after which they inveigled various tourists into dancing with them, etc. A good time was had by all!

The ship sailed out by way of the Darwin Channel...more fantastic views. What a place! Less than 30 minutes underway, there was an odd vibration to the ship. I thought we may have scraped something in the water, but the Captain soon came on the PA system to explain that we had just experienced an earthquake!!

We are also advised that as we sail farther south our Internet access may be interrupted at times. I believe this has to do with our angle to the various geosynchronous satellites. Anyway, I will do my best to keep this up in a timely manner (or at least no worse than so far).