March 9 – 10 the Beagle Channel, mountains, fjords and the Garibaldi Glacier

 

The Windy App on my phone indicated that the weather coming in from the west into the Drake Passage was looking pretty wild - red and purple indicate very strong winds. So we headed back into the protection of the Beagle Channel and retraced our steps past Puerto Williams and Ushuaia to then navigate further west. It was glorious sailing past snow-capped mountains the slopes of which were densely wooded with beech forests, past deep narrow valleys and blue glaciers weeping into the Channel, and all the while waterfalls tumbled all around us. 

There were some interesting distractions such as lectures one of which was quite engaging about the Patagons, the southernmost inhabitants of the world and another one about the native people of the southern Terra del Fuego, the Yagan, the aquatic people who spent their time on the water hunting for sea mammals and birds. Like so many native people of the world, colonialists were their ultimate demise.

The next day still sailing through the Beagle Channel, we turned into and cruised along the narrow arm of the Garibaldi Fjord. At the end of the fjord we came hard up against the towering craggy blue face of the Garibaldi glacier spilling out of the Corillera Darwin (range) on the Terra del Fuego Island – we were still a fair way south.

Garibaldi glacier

Brought face to face with this titan of blue ice, the zodiacs were launched and we went cruising among a millin chunks of ice. The central drak stripe of moraine shows that this glacier is in fact two glaciers merged into one. Concerned about a calving, the zodiac drivers kept well away from the face of the glacier only to find another one oozing down a side crevasse.  Quite stunning.

This is Alexandre, one of our guides. He is an historian

The scenery is simply breathtaking

And on the right we spotted another glacier creeping down to fall into the Garibaldi fjord

This shows how this glacier has receded and grown over the years. 

Evenings there is always ‘entertainment’ which we often don’t attend. The majority of the passengers are French-speaking  and when anything was being translated into English, the non-english speaker just talked over it (loudly). So it just seems pointless to be there. Added to that, the ‘entertainment’ is held in the main salon which can accommodate about 100 people max; the ship can carry over 200!