Four Months in Patagonia

After a month on the dock in Puerto Montt, Chile, the whole crew arrived, ready for our next adventure. Bruce, Nora, Steve, Jon and I, (the regulars), were joined by Magnus (our Patagonia & Antarctic guide), and his wife Julia. A last-minute arrival to the crew, bringing it to eight in all, was the addition of my God Daughter, Grace.

We spent the week provisioning, getting to know the local supermarkets and farmer's markets very well! According to Magnus, our next opportunity for supplies was 3-4 weeks away, in Puerto Natales! Buying enough provisions for 8 people for that length of time took time and planning, but by the 4th November, we were ready.

As you can imagine, giving a blow by blow account of months in Patagonia would make for a very long blog, so I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves, and give a brief synopsis.

We soaked in hot springs, hiked granite shores, visited waterfalls, kayaked by glaciers, sampled the local wines, got crab from the local fisherman (and spent hours cooking and cleaning it), visited the Torres Del Paine National Park, had a fire on the beach, took dinghy tours, saw elephant seals, played cards (whilst hunkered down in bad weather), and eventually arrived in Puerto Williams, the southernmost town in the world, just in time for Christmas. Oh, and we had a lot of wig/dance parties in the top (Matrix) deck!

With a rota for cooking and cleaning, it was a real team effort. Grace and Julia learned to drive the dinghy, we got very good line handling in small anchorages where we needed to spider-web ourselves to shore, we made some gorgeous mulled wine, enjoyed group Spanish lessons on YouTube, drank glacial ice martini's... but I think it's fair to say that none of us want to clean crab ever again!

Apologies for the photo dump! It's hard to leave anything out!