Day 33 - Chilean Fjords

Couldn't sleep last night. It became quite rough and the worst thing was the banging and crashing from down below. Tim said it was ballast and water, but it turned out, as we discovered this morning, to be a loose anchor. I was quite scared and Tim came into my bunk, which was a bit of a squash. I felt better when I could see waves and the open ocean out of the porthole. We were thrown about quite a bit and had to hold on, but tiredness finally overcame me. Neither of us felt sick at all, a combination of Stugeron, which Tiffy gave us, and acupressure bands. I didn't sleep until about 4am when Tim went back up to the top bunk and I then slept fitfully till 7am, skipped breakfast and stayed in bed till 10am. It was calmer then and we went back into the channels.

The Pacific had been far rougher than the legendary Golfo de Penas, but the others had hardly noticed the rough seas. I think it is because we were in the foremost cabin of all and it was less noticeable the farther back you were. Anyway, we survived it. There was rain in the morning and it was pretty cold. We sat in the bar with Paul and the others planning the rest of the trip.

We bought Navimag t-shirts and went up on deck for a while. We could see Puerto Eden on Wellington Island - with a few houses where there are still 8 Indians living, but we didn't stop. It was warm in the sun, then suddenly very cold again. There were lovely snow-capped mountains.

After lunch, we went through Angostura Inglesa, then we read and dozed until a penguin alert. We couldn't see them and I had jumped out of bed specially! We did see lots of small icebergs. The boat has been great and I don't really want it to end, as long as there are no more rough seas. The service has improved since Jorge, the service manager, came on board, and has listened to our concerns and made sure we have everything we need. Luiz, our waiter, is a little slow, but we keep tipping him to oil his wheels. Also, Claudia, our bilingual guide, is very nice and informative. We had our last dinner on board - salmon, then I went up to watch a slide show on Torres del Paine. Tim came to join me playing bingo! (Didn't win). I am ready to go to sleep, hoping for a better night.