After our hiking adventures in Torres del Paine in Chile and around Mount Fitz Roy in Argentina, we were back to Puerto Natales to start exploring Patagonia by sea. We joined a 5 day 4 nights cruise operated by Skorpios around fjords and glaciers of Souther Patagonia Ice field. Before getting on the ship we had a full day in Puerto Natales.
We drove up to Milodon cave – a very impressive cave where remains of a pre-historic giant sloth – Mylodon – were found. The animal was up to 4m long and went extinct about 10,000 years ago. The site is very well organized and informative. There are also fossils of other pre-historic animals and evidence of human occupation. we then went around Puerto Natales a little bit.
Then we dropped off our car and got ready for the cruising adventure. We never went on a cruise before but felt that this one would not really be like a cruise – but more like a liveaboard just with going on shore excursions instead of diving.
We joined a 4 night 5 day Kaweskar route on Skorpios. The route is 505 miles and visits the largest number of glaciers in the region: Guilliard, Amalia, El Brujo (the Warlock), and the glaciers of Calvo, Bernal, and Herman fjords. Our ship Skorpios III was 70m long and had a capacity for only 90 passengers plus crew. We had a fantastic experience potentially opening our mind to more cruising – though only on smaller vessels like this. The crew was wonderful. The food was excellent – fancy restaurant good. And they had tea time – tecito in Chilean – with the best tasting cakes we ever had. We added a couple of kilos from the tecito no doubt, but there was just no way to resist. The cabins were very comfortable and common areas inviting. And the most important part of course were shore excursions and scenic navigation through fjords. We were definitely very happy we went on this trip. Maybe Antarctica next time. Here are some highlights from the route.
Amalia glacier is retreating rapidly retreating 7km over the past half a century. The glacier scrapes Reclus volcano and volcanic sediment mixes with ice to make it look black and blue.
On a visit fo Calvo Fjord we moved into special small boats that can move through ice and went deap into fjord to see waterfalls, glaciers, floating ice, and dolphins poking through it. The cloud was very thick with some drizzle. To start with we could not see very much as we made our way through mist and cloud. But actually this going through mist and clouds seemed a properly Patagonian thing to do. As day progressed clouds slowly lifted.
And then it was time to return to Puerto Natales. Of course, the day we were disembarking all the clouds disappeared and we had a perfect blue sky unlike the previous 4 days. But we still were very happy we did this navigation and got to see glaciers and fjords.
On the bright side, having this perfect clear sky meant that we had amazing views from the plane as we were flying north from Puerto Natales to Santiago. We set on the right side (F window) and saw clearly Torres del Paine massif and many glaciers and mount Fitz Roy in the distance. It was a perfect end for the Patagonia part of our trip.
