CRUISES: Patagonia, a Mountainous Land Submerged in the Sea

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

The 14-passenger pangas slip into Condor Fjord in southern Chile, their bows riding high, slapped by the waves. The water swirls gray around them, the sky hangs leaden overhead. The passengers hunch up against the unrelenting wind. Maybe this is a day to lounge before a cheerful fire, a hot toddy in hand.

But maybe not. The channel twists a little and suddenly the snout of the Condor Glacier rears before them. It towers over the little inflatables. Five hundred feet wide and 180 feet high, the snout fronts a glacier that runs for three quarters of a mile down the Darwin Range in far-off Patagonia.

Momentarily the mountain tops light up pink in the morning sun. A luminosity slides down to the glacier face as if an electrician had suddenly pulled a switch on a theatrical backcloth. The glacier growls like a dog that's been rudely awakened and the dry air crackles. Cormorants shoot off from their rocky ledges as chunks of ice the size of school busses fall, as if in slow motion, into the churning waters below.

The scene remains as if floodlit for a few seconds then again retreats into the pewter tones of Patagonia. The magical moment passes. The passengers of the m/v Mare Australis let out their collective breath and sigh with pleasure. It'll be a lifetime memory. The Zodiacs buzz like flies back to the mother ship, their passengers sporting smiles to warm any ship expedition leader's heart.

The Mare Australis was built in Chile in 2002 specially for voyages to this distant place described by Charles Darwin as a "mountainous land, partly submerged in the sea" where the Andes drop down to Antarctica at the bottom of the world, The ship is compact, only 235 feet long and 44 feet wide and -- with a draft of only 10.3 feet -- can get in close to land and navigate easily in shallow waters.

Travelers have come this way for several hundred years most moving on because they couldn't face the trial of nature in the raw. There's less challenge, of course, on a luxury cruise ship that provides oilskin slickers for its passengers, carefully monitors shore excursions and follows them with hot chocolate or 3 year-old Scotch whisky chilled with 1000 year-old glacier ice. Passengers can select their level of activity on excursions and those who choose to observe the elephant seals or penguins by merely strolling on the beach are called "Johnie Walkers."

The ship is comfortable and the lavish cuisine excellent with many superb Chilean wines offered gratis as a component of the cruise. The ship's boutique sells warm garments at surprisingly reasonable prices. Entertainment is what you'd expect on a small 63-cabin ship but it's fun; just don't expect Las Vegas. The ship has a doctor and most of the ship's officers and senior staff are, in contrast to the rest of Patagonia, bilingual. For any trips before and after the cruise, a simple Spanish phrase book comes in useful though the lectures by naturalists on board are given in both Spanish and English.

IF YOU GO

What you see is totally dependent on the weather. Nowhere is the cliché more true: "Four seasons in five minutes!" For more information call Cruceros Australis at 877-678-3772 or visit the company's website www.australis.com/ which provides all the information you'd need. It implies the 7-day cruise can be broken into a 4-day and a 3-day components but Patagonia is so far away it doesn't make sense to fly for, say, 18 hours from LAX or JFK just to take a 4-day cruise. LanChile, (800 735 5526 www.lanchile.com/) the country's flagship airline, offers the best flights. Since flying this close to Antarctica is probably a one-time experience to, Anderson ’s World readers might want to consider going Business Class for, at least, the trip down. And bring warm clothes; even in Patagonia's summer the temperatures average about 45 degrees F.