 |
| Leaving Chacabuco - finally the cloud cover lifts and we espy the snow dusted mountains... |
 |
| Fishermen wave merrily.... |
 |
| We follow the winding fjord towards the open sea... |
 |
| Almost like British Columbia, and almost like the view from my window at home... |
 |
| Mountains and sea...one bend in the channel after another |
 |
| Yes, albeit the rain has stopped, the roof of the Crow's Nest Bar is still leaking.... |
 |
| All out on deck taking photos of the stunning scenery floating by.... |
 |
| Last rays of evening sun bouncing of a wet cliff.... |
 |
| Tide Line - tides are around 10 to 12 feet in this area, and converging currents create their typical traces... |
With a final passage through the last of the hundreds of deep Chilean Fjords, we finally had a rare glimpse of their natural beauty. Leaving Chacabuco, the rain stopped momentarily, snow dusted mountain tops appeared, blue sky lined out the cordilleras and sierras raising high from the fjords. Waterfalls descended from the cliffs sparkling in the sun, the sea shone with reflected sun rays - a rewarding and beautiful sight after our last landfall in sunny Puerto Madryn on April 3 - over a week of miserable weather ago.
Although everyone enjoyed the unexpected final gift of the weather gods, grumbling had not ceased.
As a peace offering for the drastically curtailed itinerary, all passengers found a letter of apology in their rooms, offering a 25% discount of the cost of their present journey to apply to a future cruise. An invitation to an all you can consume party in all ship's bars between 5 and 6 p.m., profuse apologies etc etc...
People complained about the cancelled ports and blamed the Captain and Holland America Line for plotting a deceit - as the ship had not experienced anything but calm during the last few days cruising the fjords, the free booze party was scheduled at the wrong time, i.e. during early dinner time, the service was so slow 'the stewards would never get a job at home' (that comment from an Australian couple), 'they' changed everything on the whole cruise and passengers were not told about it before hand, HAL did not carry a shore excursion advisor that spoke fluent German, HAL did not provide crew and staff that speak fluent Spanish, the cruise credit letter was not printed in several languages, the entire cruise fare should have been refunded, the tender platform access leads through crew quarters and via crew stairs (tender access is at water level, the dungeons in terms of accommodation - hence crew quarters),the ships time is different from local time (wrong), it gets dark too early outside (hey, can't change the course of the sun), 'they' could have found some place to stop in Patagonia (oh, where is geography gone??), we never know which way to look to shore because the ship is moving around too much (that referred to swinging at anchor in Chacabuco)....ah well, what can one say.
We headed out into the open sea that night, end of 'calm' conditions....60 knot winds, 20+ foot waves....and that was at the outer edge of the storm.
I woke up during the night, with the ship rolling heavily from port to starboard, I stored loose breakables in drawers cushioned with towels, and wondered what the squeaking noise was outside my cabin in the hallway...too early for badly oiled breakfast carts. Finally I figured out that the 'medical' pooch must be living next door to me and moaning his little head off...sounded as if he was sea sick. Medical pooch is aboard to alleviate anxiety attacks of owner. Doggie has a astro turf patch on the back of the walk about deck.
He nearly hanged himself during the lifeboat drill some time ago. Dog suffered anxiety attack with all the ship's whistles going off and people crowding around, he jumped out of owner's back back where he was attached by a short leash. Another passengers rescued him before he strangulated himself...
Off to Puerto Montt...Bon Voyage!
