Navimag Evangelisticas Ferry
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2012
1
10
18
Trip End
Feb 28, 2012
Where I stayed
Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The ferry itself is about 30 years old and carried about 150 passengers and fourty crew members as well as cargo of heavy equipment and containers. There were no private cabins left so we accepted a room for four with shared bathroom. It turned out that we had no room mates and those with a private bathroom still had to go down a long hall to their bathroom. We had the best of both! It was a three night journey. They warned us that a storm was approaching just when we had to sail about 12 hours on open sea. It was possible that we would have to anchor in a quiet inlet for up to 2 days to wait out the storm. The "capitan" would make the decision when we arrived at the open sea. Did we want to change our mind? We could get full refund! We decided to go.
We left Puerto Montt at about 6:00 pm., had salmon for dinner and then a national geographic movie about Patagonian Chile. The weather was mostly fine the next day, with some showers and squalls blowing through. We travelled through calm waters through island channels. It was beautiful landscape! We were given interpretive explanations in Spanish and English (considerably shorter but fine) as we went along.
At about 3:00 p.m the next day, we were told to take our seasickness pills, because we would hit the open water in a few hours. I was obedient (we bought it at the pub) but Larry decided he didn't need it. By 7:00 the captain decided it was safe to continue. The sky was dark and the wind was howling. We had to be very careful as we tried to make our way down the corridors of the ship. We had spaghetti dinner but only half of the passengers were in the dinning room. Right after dinner, Larry and I decided that we would go to bed. Our little bit of queeziness went away as soon as we lay down and were rocked to sleep. We woke up the next morning just as we entered the channel again! The sun had risen and everything was suddenly calm and bright.
The captain let us come into the 'bridge' so we spent quite a bit of time there. He and his officers were happy to explain navigation, radar, gps systems, etc. The other staff were also very good. We even had a few lectures on 'flora and fauna' and geography of the area. They took us to a glacier that was calving into the ocean early one morning.
Larry and I were very glad we chose to travel this way. The passengers came from all over the world: Chile, Argentina, Canada, U.S., England, Spain, Germany, Croatia, France, Belgium - to name only a few. All were very friendly and we had many good conversations. One young brother and sister from England were traveling after receiving an inheritance from their mother, knowing that is what she would want. They befriended us almost immediately and declared us their adopted parents!
We arrived at Puerto Natales and disembarked at 10:00 pm. We we're glad we had reserved our room at a Hostal. Today we are doing laundry and planning the next leg of our trip. Whew!
Comments
Looks fantastic! Glad you had another adventure on the ocean. Look forward to hearing more about that when you are back.
Glad to hear you are having a great time and that you sailed through the storm well......I think that I would have needed a bucket, especially after the pasta......
The pictures are great, keep them coming .....
Is Tsasis okay for you March 7 to 15?