After several days and nights of turbulent seas, night cruising through part of the Chilean Inside Passage brought a respite from clanging elevators, sloshing swimming pools, deck doors stuck from wind pressure, stairs retreating downward from under one's feet, and the rising and falling of the entire ship passing over five meter waves. These don't sound like much, however, when they are spaced apart half a mile or more, it just causes a 900 feet long ship either point nose up or down by more than five meters, and of course the stern does the whole thing in reverse. Add a bit of broadside roll, and conditions are perfect banging into the sides of corridors and collide with anything in the way when proceeding ones wavy way. So, in the Golfo de Ancud, south of Puerto Montt and protected by the Isla de Chiloe, and through the Canal Moraleda, equally protected by a labyrinthic archipelago of thousands of islands, the stateroom beds did not shake and shudder all night.
Around 07:00 on January 26th the ship turned west to return to the Pacific Ocean via Darwin Channel, a narrow passage between mountainous islands. Darwin passed through here on the H.M.S. Beagle in 1833 as a 'gentleman' naturalist, meaning he was free to pursue his own interests instead of heaving lines, pulling hawsers and performing regular sailor's work.
M.S. Amsterdam carries two Chilean pilots aboard, who take turns helping the Captain guide our vessel through the intricate channels and passages of the fjords between Valparaiso and Punta Arenas, the last Chilean port on this journey.
To brave the elements, one grabs a coffee and a muffin, conveniently located just inside the promenade deck doors, which again were hard to push open to the outside. Then to the bow, fully exposed to the bone chilling apparent wind from dead ahead. The sea looked calm, no swells yet. Gloomy and beautiful, the mountains rose around us, hemming in Darwin Channel on both sides. No human habitation anywhere, except one lone floating fish-farm, a few strategically placed beacons on many shoals and rocky islets.
The scenic part of the cruise unfortunately finished at 09:00 and we headed back into the Pacific, and with it right back into swells which had built to even more impressive and powerful size since we had left the Pacific a day earlier.
The ship hit the swells with sounds of cannons going off, weird metallic noises emanate from the interior of the hull at each crashing plunge, the elevators groan and screech scraping against the shafts, the supply of sick bags at the elevator doors diminishes, spume flies past the promenade deck, curtains move rythmically from side to side, the lunch buffet is a little less popular (although the die hards eat as much as ever), the swimming pools are emptied out after they splashed half their contents onto the decks and turned them into ankle deep wading pools, the song and dance performance scheduled for tonight is cancelled (props would fall, and dancers as well), lectures and workshops are half empty, and the heaving and rolling and yawing of the ship on the confused and rough sea brings out 'storm stories' from all the seasoned travellers. The Captain warned everyone to store loose belongings safely in their staterooms, hold on and dress warm, if venturing outside at all.
I participated in a watercolour class onc back on the high seas and produced a somewhat nature-inspired 'abstract'. Trying to guide a brush loaded with paint proved to be futile, the artwork turned out to resemble 'elephant' or 'gorilla' creations.
Our course would keep us in rough weather almost all night, when we pass by Golfo de Penas and Isla Wellington and finally return to the fjords through Trinity Passage.
Another bouncy ride until then...
