14 March 2023 Skua and El Brujo Glaciers

 

Skua glacier ahead

Another day, another glacier – in this case two of the largest.  First stop for a landing was Skua Glacier which is 3 km wide. It is nested in the Andes in the heart of the Southern Patagonian ice field.  It’s mammoth.  We zodiaced ashore and picked our way through sparkling diamonds of ice – Diamond beach Iceland eat your heart out (although many of theirs were bigger). 

Dainty pixie cup lichen, Cladonia asahinae, The vegetation was enchanting.

It was a long trudge across wet gravel, old moraine and sand, through light rain, across creeks and on through thick vegetation (sadly there was no botanist on board to describe and appreciate my finds).  Quite tranquil, but for the people although they did stagger the landing spreading them across 1.5hrs with a ‘deadline’ for each landing so we didn’t create too big a crush in this pristine environment.

That's Lindsay coming back from his explorations.

I stopped at a great little spot while Lindsay went on for another half km or so.  I had a terrific vantage point which I shared it with and few others, one a 60 odd year-old woman with MS. Her efforts were heroic in getting to some of the places – a very determined woman, Hooray for her! 

Then it was back to the ship to sail a little further north to another glacier – El Brujo. There was to be no landing there but a zodiac cruise as well as kayaking for a few brave souls – it was their first time in the water.  We decided to watch from onboard - little did we know they took champagne out in the zodiacs. Such a French thing to do, they open bottles at the drop of a hat.  This was a magnificent 2 km wide glacier. The erosion/sastrugi that pockmarks the surface creating dazzling shapes in all shades of blue. These ancient glaciers reached their maximum extent during the last glacial period which ended about 10,000 years ago. Mind boggling. As the global temperatures increased the glaciers retreated leaving bare the deep wide valleys they had ground out.  As the sea levels rose and the glaciers melted, the valleys were flooded forming the fjords we were sailing in. Amazing to contemplate.  

El Brujo glacier

Zoom in and look at the amazing shapes and colours

They towed the kayaks out away from the ship for people to climb in to. The water was full of ice . 

The zodiacs are dwarfed by the size of that gnarly blue face

That night was one of the Gala nights the ship hosts – tonight the ‘White Night’. Amazing to see the outfits people had packed needless to say we dined casually in Restaurant La Boussole (along with others similar minded people). 

The arrow is roughly where we were today

Back out in to the channel to experience a stunning sunset (later)

This may give you an idea of the zig-zag of our journey so far. Not surprising we needed a pilot.