Navimag Ferry

Finally after a days delay from bad weather we we board the navimag in the afternoon. It’s a big ugly boat, no massive cargo crates like we expected but some cows somewhere we hear.


The sleeping arrangement looks good, several rooms containing a labyrinth of corridors with 50 odd bunks in each. All are in blocks of 4, 2 bunks facing each other, it feels very private when your little curtain is drawn & reading lamp on, comfy beds and huge lockers to hurl all your stuff in.

Glad we didn’t go for the cabins as they are just the same with a door to the block of 4 but really expensive. Surprising how many passengers are on board but then when you look at the map the roads are none existent due to the terrain being mountainous and fjordy, so it’s the only way to travel to central Chile really.

Ohhhh it’s a little chilly and we aint at sea proper yet!

We set sail and watch the flat Puerto Natales fade into the distance and then run round exploring all the decks. It’s not long before we are gliding through the many fjords & by tree lined islands.

The bar is the obvious place to hang out when the weather gets too much on deck and most of the passengers lounge around reading & writing diaries, and here we were thinking we were doing something different!

Bad time to misplace the hairbush!

We soon settle in to a life that revolves around meal times (reminiscent of a school canteen), briefings, movies, walks on deck & lounging about in the bar. It’s actually quite nice to not be able to do anything else. We have been reading Roald Dahl ghost stories and one summed up the feeling quite well:

“To the majority of us the most delightful moment of the day on board is when we have taken our last turn on deck and having succeeded in tiring ourselves; feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience.”

Our first night on board we settle down in our cosy bunks & sleep like babies on calm seas.

We are woken at 8 by a pleasant voice over announcing breakfast and the day’s schedule, first in Spanish which allows one to slowly come round.

After breakfast I go to a talk about the Kewesqar people of whom the remainder lives in the tiny isolated hamlet of Puerto Eden nestled below the Andes. 180 people carve a very hard living in this place. Navimag by law has to stop there every trip to take supplies & ferry people back & forth. We take them vegetables that they can’t grow in this climate.

Puerto Eden

The Kewesqur were a small race possibly originally from Polynesia. These people were really tough, used to walk 50k a day and cross the Andes for hunting. Lived in groups of 6 or 7 and spent much of their time in dug out canoes in the strong currents of the fjords. In these boats the children would be responsible for keeping a fire going. The women had thick broad shoulders from dragging sea lions into the boat. No doubt the men did the harder work of peeling the imaginary vegetables.

Here’s half the settlement of Puerto Eden.

In the end sadly we don’t have time to go ashore as the Navimag was delayed we need to make up time. 3 primary coloured boats meet us and we swap some fisherman (who were drunk and rowdy through last nights film so no great loss) and the improbable boy (an odd child that liked to slip between me and the wall when I was trying to look at the map, he had it in for me I tell you, I’m glad he left too). Anyway we gained a Japanese family and 2 blond salty sea dogs who looked like they’d been lost in the wilds for months.

Later we pass the English narrows, the currents are really strong and only one boat at a time can go though. There’s a statue of Santa Maria patron saint of sailors we tip our hats as we pass then we head for a glacier confusingly called iceberg.

The weather worsens…..

On the way we see majestic albatrosses gliding in the strong winds in front of the boat wondering when we will haul in our catch. Over and over they swoop down to the sea and pivot so that one long thin wing tip almost touches the water, fab birds.

The glacier is almost hidden by the weather and quite frankly we have seen 5 spectaculars previously so are a tad glacier blasé, and don’t spend much time out there peering into the murk. Though it was interesting to see the definite line in the water where it turns from normal sea colour to glacier strangeness.

The weather gets so bad we are asked to stay inside so play cards with our new friends Geronia and Rory, here they are, this trip is there honeymoon.

Spontaneously they both assumed these poker faces.

There are 30 foot waves out at sea so we are staying in the channel till the weather improves. I see a sea lion pop up twice through the window & everyone leaps up but he’s gone. The music on board today is really bad, shopping centre type covers of Christmas hits looped and the obligatory sail away by Enya, are they trying to instigate a mutiny?

In the evening we watch a really good Chilean indepenant film about some shellfishermen & prostitutes living in Puerto Eden.

Here’s another quote from that ghost story, fitted well with how we felt about the French couple bunking opposite us:

“We made up our minds we didnt care to make their acquaintance & that we would study their habits in order to avoid them.”

It’s not totally correct as I saw them so little I only recognized them by their shoes.

The next morning I can hear the cows mooing, poor things. We breakfast with Ken, his brother & wife, (good guys, met in the torrrs) Ken (among other interesting things) was a master canner of food and for a while bought some peacocks for his garden but had to send them back because they hung out & pooed on his patio.

Here he is…

We were anchored in a peachy bay and it’s sunny and calm, why are we here then you may ask?

After breakfast we find out our captain had a heart attack in the night and had been taken to hospital to recover, he was 75, quite old for skippering. Thankfully bad weather stopped us being out at sea when it happened.
We await a replacement captain and watch Night at the Museum (pretty funny).

We kill time reading and writing as we drift around on anchor. It’s strange that we are doing the same things but because the boat isn’t moving it’s really tedious.

exercising on deck the sun arrives at last

After lunch in a briefing the new captain makes soo much of a show of his credentials it has the opposite effect of pacifying and instead we feel slightly nervous, plus he looks like a fisherman.

2008 ship odyssey

We all feel a bit better when pisco sours are served on his behalf
& soon we are again underway. The weather is good and we plop around on deck and watch the petras diving behind the ship and swooping up alongside as the sun dramatically sets.

Later in the bar there are a group of travellers playing very physical drinking games next to a bunch of locals betting on cards in a raucous animated stylie. The sickness pills have been handed out for the shandy drinkers and an announcement comes over the tannoy: take your pills now! All a bit 1984.

Is the boat listing though?

Just so no one gets confused in an emergency: Run to the blue family of aliens or have a game of ludo.

It’s not meant to be a rough crossing but I heed the advice of not drinking. At 10.30 we feel a tad ropy and go out on deck. As the boat pitches we go from feeling ultra heavy to light as a feather and have some fun jumping around before hitting the sack and being rocked gently to sleep. Dave slightly regretted drinking as the motion sloshed the contents of his stomach, port to starboard, port to starboard….

The noise of doors banging we adjusted to, but the sound of a tennis ball bouncing inside a locker was infuriating, we just couldn’t locate which bloody locker.


We’ve been reading an apt book about cartography called The Island of lost Maps. The story as a whole didn’t really hold together but it had some fascinating history about maps and map makers.

The reason sea monsters appear on old maps is because the explorers used to embellish their tales of far away lands with monsters to gain the publics interest. Some examples:

Christopher Columbus reported that the new world contained men with snouts of dogs.

Sir Walter Raleigh returned from South America in 1596 reporting the jungles were inhabited by a tribe of headless men whose facial features were in their chests.

There were men with just one massive foot that could run as fast as animals.

And the piece de resistance from Mandeville (who incidentally fabricated whole journeys that globes of the world were based on). Along with imaging 2 headed geese to 30foot giants was “a people who live just on the smell of a kind of apple. If they loose that smell they would die” priceless!

Dave composing love sonnets for Jackie

The next morning with the crossing behind us we were back in channels and the sun is shining. This had an extreme effect on our guide who turned into a yellow coat for the briefing “ MUY BUENAS DAIAS!!!!”
She shouts Ola and endeavors to get the bemused passengers to shout it back enthusiastically. Also we were congratulated on surviving the crossing, was this hyperness relief because she really was nervous about the new captain?
All a tad embasing & inappropriate at 8.30 in the morning.
Then we hear there will be a tips envelope on our lunch tray and expect that has turned her into this loopy Mavis. Her hysteria climaxed as she told us about the live music & bingo planned for the evening, just how we’ll contain ourselves till then its difficult to say campers.

Dave had to prompt her to tell us the most important news of the day, when we would be crossing the blue whale sanctuary. There wasn’t a massive chance of seeing one but we wanted to be on deck scanning the horizon just in case.

Spent the day pottering around and sitting in the sun. Saw a couple of large schools of dolphins and a big fat grey seal near the boat, and some penguins in the distance.

That evening Dave, Ken and I braced the wind and cold on the front of the boat looking for signs of one of the 200 blue whales apparently out there. Not only are blue whales the largest animal on earth (up to 30 meters) they are apparently the loudest, the second loudest are Howler monkeys. Blue whales make low frequency pulses when communicating that have been measured up to 188 decibels; they have been detected 850km away. It would by far be the best animal to ever set eyes on.

Ken & Jackie in serious whale watching stance.

We stay out for several hours but alas no sightings, nice to pass through their water space none the less.


There were 2 fairly silly looking guys with these great mammoth coats.

Dave and I visited the captain on the bridge. It was funny seeing his kit & chart table, everything the same as on a small yacht bar the sonar, no whale shaped flashing lights there though and we call it a day.

Meanwhile the passengers have caught some Butlins fever and were treating Chris the cheesy Casio keyboard singer to a standing ovation. While uberhoast was making the contestants do a silly dance if they mistakenly called bingo. We backed away from this Phoenix Night’s madness and go for a nice sleepy.

The next morning we awake and arrive at port our first salty trip draws to an end.