The Chilean town of Chacabuco lies tucked away at the end of a fjord and a fair distance from Puerto Montt and therefore we had an official arrival time of 10.00. This was our first full night inside the Chilean inside passage and I was quite happy with that as outside a whopper of a storm was building up. Building up very quickly, moving very quickly and being of great intensity. The weather map gave a wind indication of 60 knots or more and then you are talking hurricane force winds. Where we sailed it was windy, very windy, but nothing more than 35 knots, until around 3 am when we passed a side channel that was perpendicular to ours and directly in line with the open sea. It blew this storm force wind in with a sort of funnel effect increasing the wind velocity even more. So suddenly we had 70 knots of wind blowing around the ship. However there was no movement of the ship to accompany it as we were sailing in sheltered waters; only the howling of the wind around the ships superstructure gave away that is was extremely windy out there and of course the foam streaks on the water. 10 minutes later we had passed this side canal and everything was back to normal. Continue reading

The planning worked out as expected and by 0100 this morning we entered the Chilean Inside passage via Canal de Chacao. Not much of an issue in principle but I had to be on the bridge as the passage has one narrow point, near the town of Chacao. Here the navigable width of the channel goes down to about 3000 feet and currents can run up to 8 knots. Normally you go through at or near slack tide, when the current is predicted to be the least and hence our planning for 01.00 near the entrance. The Chilean fjords are not un-similar to the Canadian Inside passage when you leave Vancouver, with little villages dotted along the cliffs, interspersed with open grass area’s for farms. The town of Puerto Montt that we were visiting today is the district capital for this area and located about 70 miles past these narrows. That gave me the chance to catch another 2 hours of sleep before the fun and games of the day were starting. Continue reading

Isla Robinson Crusoe is situated directly to the west of Valparaiso some 370 miles away. Hence our low speed run when going there. Still the ship moved due to the ocean swell. Going back to the mainland we are sailing on a SSE’ly course and have to travel a distance of just over 600 miles to reach Puerto Montt at the beginning of the Chilean Inside passage. Although we now had following winds, we had to go faster with the swell under angle and the Prinsendam showed that she can be quite lively at times. Still not every ocean crossing can be as smooth as a mirror and I did not receive any reports that guests were affected by it. For the American guests all focus seemed to be on the Super bowl and the merits of the one team or the other. For a non American like me it is impossible to try to comprehend this sport. First they have a conference about how to throw a ball and as soon as they get going somebody throws a yellow hand-kerchief on the pitch and everything stops again. So I leave them to it. Continue reading

The weather turned out not to be as good as I had hoped for. A frontal system had peaked up a bit from the south going higher up (or to lower latitude in this case as we are in the Southern hemisphere) than expected and it brought the occasional rain shower with it. It also was responsible for a wind direction change to the North West which was less pleasant. To safely anchor in Cumberland Bay you need both South Westerly swell and South Westerly Wind to have a quiet anchorage. However as the Wind was more WNW than NNW I had high hopes that the anchorage would still be sufficiently in the lee to make a safe tender operation possible. Thus I was happy that I had already decided before in the initial cruise plan to arrive an hour and a half early to have time to sort it all out without giving Murphy a chance to get involved with the planning. Continue reading

With high hopes in my heart I woke up this morning to see what the weather looked like outside. It was very good. Exactly conforming to the weather forecast. The sun was shining, hardly any wind and only the long running swell was still very evident. There is normally an ocean swell running here but with the constant series of depressions moving by just to the south, the swell can be very pronounced here and it was. So we moved up and down on the swell and occasionally slammed on the waves when two waves merged and created one big wave. Still the sun was shining and the whales were playing around the ship and the pitching of the ship was a minor hindrance in relation to all the good weather. I hope the weather will hold for tomorrow as well when we are in Isla Robinson Crusoe. Continue reading

We had a very heavy swell running throughout the night, causing the Prinsendam to pitch heavily. Still the weather remained good for this region and when we docked in Valparaiso it was chilly but wind still and as soon as the sun rose, it became a beautiful day. All around us the port was full of Chilean navy ships, according to the pilot almost the whole fleet was home. With the fuel prices being so high there was not so much money for playing around with these expensive toys and most ships were laid up double and triple thick on the inside of the break water. Although the port is sheltered there is a still a low swell running into the harbour as the long waves are bouncing back from the shore line further to the East. The dock has very strong fenders and thus we are gently moved along the dock all day. The ships rubbing stroke earned its money again. Continue reading

It was an approach to the port that I could dream by now as it was basically the same as in San Martin, Arica and Iquique. The only difference was that the pier was not an L shape into the sea but a rocky Peninsula with the pier on its lee side. We arrived nicely on time but were then told to wait by the pilot as he advised us that he was maneuvering. For a moment we thought that he was talking about his car but then it became clear that he meant the ship alongside the dock where we were supposed to go. It turned out that the captain of the cargo vessel was not very much in the mood to get out of bed for us, so it took a while before the ship was gone. I was docked at exactly 8 am. The official arrival time but in order to get the tours going on time, you really have to be earlier than that. The tours left 30 minutes late and that it will mean that we depart 30 minutes later this evening. A normal occurrence during a full day tour, the schedules are always tight. Continue reading

Chile is the longest and narrowest country in the world and that “longest” part we are now noticing ourselves. For the last 24 hours we have been sailing down the coast on an almost direct southerly course just outside the 12 mile zone so we can keep the casino open. Even if we did not have a casino, this would be the average distance as well, as occasionally the Chilean coast has a cape or peninsula jutting out of the coast surrounded by reefs and pinnacle rocks, so it makes sense to keep a good distance. The weather took a turn for the worse this morning by completely clouding over which dropped the average temperatures considerably. The frontal system lying over Robinson Crusoe Island is pushing these clouds further up North. Also the swells are more pronounced than yesterday and the ship has been pitching gently all day long. Continue reading

The lay out of the dock of the port of Iquique was almost identical to that of our last port Arica. Again an L shaped breakwater with a smaller pier inside but just a little bit bigger. The bad news was that there was a fishmeal processing plant on the pier where we docked. The good news was it was not in operation as they were carrying out maintenance. So although there was a distinctive smell hanging over the port it was not unbearable. Yesterday on arrival we had Sea Lions honking (that might be the wrong expression for a sea lion call but that is what it sounded like) at us on arrival and this morning we had seals frolicking around the ship when we came in. We had them again on departure and then they found the cooling water exhaust of the main engines. The out flowing water must have been enjoyable as they kept playing in it. I am all for wild life around the ship but it did make the maneuvers more difficult as you do not want to get one of these graceful animals caught in the bow thrusters. So we floated in and out of the port a little slower then I am normally used to. Continue reading

Today we were in Arica Chile. Well just inside Chile, barely inside Chile as a matter of fact, as the Peruvian border is only 11 miles to the North. That meant we still sailed along the Peruvian coast for the whole of the night until we passed the border about an hour before we picked up the Arica pilot. The port of Arica is basically nothing more than an L shaped breakwater sticking out into the sea and where the ships dock at the inside of that breakwater. Recently they have added another pier to it on the inside but only for small drafted vessels. Thus we docked at the inside of the breakwater and once again we were lucky with the weather and the swell. It was a gorgeous sunny day with temperatures in the mid seventies and with a very long ocean swell that was running under such an angle that there was no swell in the port at all. The little town of Arica is located just outside the gate and thus for those who were not going on tour there was something to do as well. Continue reading