I'm on a boat
OK, time to start showing some photos from this winter's trip down to Patagonia. Today, I'll talk about our journey south from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Puerto Natales, Chile. We took a ferry, the M.V. Evangelistas, operated by Navigaciones Magallanes, better known as Navimag. We flew through Santiago, and had to spend a couple hours laying over in that airport. During that time, we checked out this tower of luggage that had been set up in an otherwise-unused space:
Black-fronted ibis (see full bird list here) in Puerto Montt:
The Evangelistas in port, prior to our departure:
Steaming out of Puerto Montt, we got good looks at two volcanoes. The smooth white one on the left (north) is Volcan Osorno, and the craggier one on the right (south) is Calbuco:
Heavy cloud cover prevented us from seeing Chaiten the next day, which was a bummer considering all the press it got for its eruption in 2008.
A few shots to show the scenery typical of the next three days as we sailed south towards Puerto Natales:
A ship that ran aground in the 1960s:
We passed a lot of the time in birdwatching. Peering over the deck with binoculars pressed to your eyesockets is a good way to attract other birders. So we made friends with Rory and Leann, a South African couple on a month-long tour of South America. That's Rory in the red jacket:
Doing this, I saw my first penguin, dozens (hundreds?) of albatrosses, and the flightless steamer duck, which is, as Rory enthusiastically pointed out, "a f#%king flightless duck!"
When I see a new species, I note the date and location in my bird guide:
One day, we made a detour to go check out the "Pio XI" or Bruggen Glacier draining into the ocean from the South Patagonian Ice Field (fourth largest ice sheet in the world, after Antarctica, Greenland, and the Elias-Kluane ice field in Alaska and Canada). The Bruggen Glacier is the longest in the southern hemisphere, outside of Antarctica. It is the largest glacier in South America. And it is named for a Chilean geologist!
Here's a satellite view of the area, courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory:
Note all the sediment in that ice: it's dirty stuff!
Getting closer:
Closer still, and a medial moraine becomes visible as a dirty stripe running through the middle of the glacier:
Happy tourists:
Continuing south, we encountered more and more islands, and in many places the channel through which the Evangelistas sailed was quite narrow.
At one point, we squeezed through this NARROW gap:
Finally, we approached Puerto Natales, a small town that serves as the main access point for Torres del Paine National Park:
Looking in the opposite direction, I was pleased to see a broad syncline screaming out from the mountainside:
More on Puerto Natales this weekend...
Black-fronted ibis (see full bird list here) in Puerto Montt:
The Evangelistas in port, prior to our departure:
Steaming out of Puerto Montt, we got good looks at two volcanoes. The smooth white one on the left (north) is Volcan Osorno, and the craggier one on the right (south) is Calbuco:
Heavy cloud cover prevented us from seeing Chaiten the next day, which was a bummer considering all the press it got for its eruption in 2008.
A few shots to show the scenery typical of the next three days as we sailed south towards Puerto Natales:
A ship that ran aground in the 1960s:
We passed a lot of the time in birdwatching. Peering over the deck with binoculars pressed to your eyesockets is a good way to attract other birders. So we made friends with Rory and Leann, a South African couple on a month-long tour of South America. That's Rory in the red jacket:
Doing this, I saw my first penguin, dozens (hundreds?) of albatrosses, and the flightless steamer duck, which is, as Rory enthusiastically pointed out, "a f#%king flightless duck!"
When I see a new species, I note the date and location in my bird guide:
One day, we made a detour to go check out the "Pio XI" or Bruggen Glacier draining into the ocean from the South Patagonian Ice Field (fourth largest ice sheet in the world, after Antarctica, Greenland, and the Elias-Kluane ice field in Alaska and Canada). The Bruggen Glacier is the longest in the southern hemisphere, outside of Antarctica. It is the largest glacier in South America. And it is named for a Chilean geologist!
Here's a satellite view of the area, courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory:
Note all the sediment in that ice: it's dirty stuff!
Getting closer:
Closer still, and a medial moraine becomes visible as a dirty stripe running through the middle of the glacier:
Happy tourists:
Continuing south, we encountered more and more islands, and in many places the channel through which the Evangelistas sailed was quite narrow.
At one point, we squeezed through this NARROW gap:
Finally, we approached Puerto Natales, a small town that serves as the main access point for Torres del Paine National Park:
Looking in the opposite direction, I was pleased to see a broad syncline screaming out from the mountainside:
More on Puerto Natales this weekend...
Labels: birdies, chile, glacial landforms, glaciation, mountains, oceans, patagonia, satellite imagery, south america, structure, travel, volcano
2 Comments:
Awesome! That last shot is a mountain called Cerro Rotonda -- is the conglomeratic Cretaceous Cerro Toro Formation. Some colleagues of mine hired a local boat and went there one day to see about doing some work there ... it's like a jungle, they couldn't even get to the base of the cliffs.
I've always wanted to do that boat trip from Puerto Montt ... I heard if you get seasick easily that it's pretty miserable.
Hi Brian,
Yep -- I should have mentioned that. You have to get out in Pacific swells for about 12 hours as you round the Skyring Peninsula. One thing I would say is that trying to watch albatrosses through binoculars while sailing through 15-foot seas definitely will induce nausea. The good news is that lying down in my berth alleviated the queasiness. I recommend the experience of getting seasick though: it was quite novel (as well as disconcerting). I didn't lose my cookies, but several other passengers did. And the captain scoffed at the mere 15' waves we were punching through: "This is pretty calm, actually," he said (roughly translated).
Post a Comment
<< Home