Tuesday 9 February 2010

DAY 28 Feb 9 - Scenic Cruising Chilean Fjords & Puerto Chucabuco, Chile.

Puerto Chacabuco is at the head of the Aisen Fjord. This small port is a jumping off point for the natural attractions of the region. The town itself has no sights at all and like us, if you are arriving here by ship, you definitely have to do the drive from Puerto Chacabuco to Coyhaique or Puerto Aisen (or Aysen) to take in the incredible wild and exhilarating countryside.
The area is situated along the wild-west like fjord coast land of Chile, 250 miles south of Puerto Montt. It is here that the northern Patagonian ice sheets falls into the sea in neon blue splendour. One of the last frontiers, there are few such remote, unspoiled and underdeveloped places left on earth. To simply admire the pristine beauty of its untouched natural resources is the main reason for calling on this port.

Puerto Chacabuco (see photo) is a small isolated settlement with no clearly defined town centre. The town itself consists of one main road, a fish processing facility and a pier, a frontier like village. About 10 miles north of the port is Puerto Aysen and a further 30 miles on is Coyhaique, the main town of the region.

The port and the immediate surrounding area has a population of just over 1000 residents mostly working in the tourists, fishing and shipping industries.

Neighbouring town Coyhaique is the capital city both of the Coyhaique Province and the Aisén Region of Chile. Founded in 1929 by settlers, it is a young city, with a population of about 42,000 inhabitants. Until the twentieth century, Chile showed little interest in exploiting the remote Aysén region. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the region's spectacular natural setting began to attract the attention of significant numbers from the outside world. The opening of the Carretera Austral dirt road in the 1980s helped put Coyhaique "on the map."

Coyhaique has some of the most beautiful scenery in Patagonia. It is surrounded by rivers (Simpson and Coyhaique) and by mountains. The mountains may be snow-covered throughout the year, thus it is sometimes called the city of eternal snow. Two border crossings near Coyhaique allow entry into Argentina. On some days, it is said, one can experience all four seasons in a single day: rain, snow, wind, and then bright and warm sunshine.

The night before last we left the Pacific and entered the inner passage leading down along the Chilean coast line. This meant we were quite well protected from any adverse seas. It was just as well that the Prinsendam is protected from the potentially wild Pacific because during the night the wind could be heard howling loudly with a minimum of a severe gale blowing I would guess. It really was a wild night that had us both awake on several occasions.

After leaving a dull overcast rain laden sky at Puerto Montt yesterday, we continued down the coast until we arrived, sometime in the early morning, at Canal Moraleda, where we then entered the area of magnificent fjords leading up to Puerto Chacabuco.

A few days ago at Valparaiso the ship had taken on two local pilots who will stay with the ship, giving vital navigational assistance to the Captain and bridge staff, right down to Cape Horn. The region is probably a navigational nightmare for the uninitiated.

A couple of nights ago we each received in our cabin a present of a large detailed map of the whole of the southern part of Chile. It acts as a Chilean Fjords Cruise Chart and in addition shows the considerable number of giant glaciers that surround this area. Details of this vast country's wildernesses right down to the Cape and beyond are also shown. This is now a most valuable and essential visual aid for us. The chart is indispensable as a guide to where we are and where we were going. It supplements nicely any commentary that Frank Buckingham gives from the bridge.

As light broke this morning we saw that we were in some wonder-fully scenic wild country with views of craggy mountain tops, cascading waterfalls and glacial snow fields, as we slowly cruised along the Aisen Fjord towards our eventual anchorage.

The wind was still blowing and it was very misty indeed with lots of low cloud thus restricting our views somewhat of the unspoilt terrain around us.

Even the normally flat calm waters of the fjord were full of whitecaps this morning. The weather didn't matter; we were cruising into some of the finest scenery on God's earth and enjoying every minute of it.

When the sun did briefly manage to peek through the cloud laden sky the vista completely changed under the spotlight of sunshine rays as they bounced off the mountain side and waters below. Even a little rainbow momentarily appeared brightening up the dark deep waters of the incredibly scenic Aisen Fjord.

An hour ahead of schedule the ship reached it’s anchorage at Puerto Chacabuco and took some time maneu-vering around before eventually dropping anchor. The ship’s tenders were then gently lowered for their awaiting passengers that had tours to go on or who, like us, had nothing in particular planned today other than to go ashore.

Some of the surr-ounding sights were truly beautiful particularly when the low lying clouds slowly disa-ppeared revealing majestic snow capped peaks on the nearby spectacular mountains.

Later in the morning we took a ship's tender and headed across the fjord to Puerto Chacabuco, where there is little other than an hotel (see picture below) and a fish processing plant, and took the local bus the 10 mile journey to Puerto Aisen.

It was a really miserable day, cold wet and windy. Not a day for a tour or sight-seeing. The twenty minute bus ride, on a vehicle that had seen better days, cost us the equivalent of $1 each whereas the local taxi people were looking for $70 return.

Puerto Aisen was a really run down frontier type town. It was dominated by the high mountains that surround it but on a day like today this sight was wasted on us because of the poor weather. We didn't stay long here and after a short walk along the main road of the town took the bus back to our tender port.

By just after 1 o'clock we were back on board the ship having some nice Dutch herrings in the Lido restaurant after a lovely bowl of Grandma's Chicken Noodle Soup.

The view from our balcony, a mile or so away, is of a soothing waterfall. This represents the scores of such wonders we saw along the Aysen Fjord today. Later this evening we will be going back down this same fjord when, weather permitting, some new beautiful sights await us.

2 comments:

  1. Paul,

    We were supposed to visit Chucabuco when we did our Antarctica cruise in 2006 but the rough seas out in the Pacific slowed us down so we missed that town.

    I would have loved to have seen the interior and the beautiful scenery, thanks for posting those photos.

    Jennie

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  2. LOVE THE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS. I'M ALSO GETTING A
    DETAIL REFRESHER COURSE IN GEOGRAPHY. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO WISH HUGH PAUL A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON FEB.11

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