Day 3 - Heading through the English Fjords pass a famous Ship Wreck and the only village of the entire 1500km, Puerto Eden!
 
Everyone seemed to have survived the night ok with no sickness luckily! The captain said that on the sea scale of 1-12 marked for wave depth and wind, we had experienced a scale 5 so not a bad crossing! Apparently sometimes it is so bad, people have come into the dining room got down on their knees and started praying so all in all we were lucky! Our briefing for the day described today as the more spectacular where we would head through some of the narrowest channels, see ship wrecks, stop at Puerto Eden, one of the remotest towns in the world with 140 people living there then continue on towards glacier land!
 
Again the morning saw rain and cloud and not a lot else so we chilled in our cabin whilst Ads feeling very tired got some zzzz's . After midday we thankfully left the Pacific and headed down the channels again, now the cloud was lifting slightly and to both sides of us forested mountain ranges some snow capped started to appear, amongst the many dotted islands within the fjords. After a top chicken lunch, we started to head towards the '''sea wreck'''' one of the most photographed ships in all of Patagonia which basically had perched itself on top of a rock just 2 metres above the water and there it stayed. Rusty as anything, it seemed bizarre that it hadn't sunk and as we passed it, because we were moving, it was as if the boat itself were moving too like a ghost vessel, weird really.
 
By now the mountains visible were higher all around us with gushing waterfalls cascading down some of them. Amongst a pretty bleary outlook it was still incredible to know that we were in a part of the world where no man can go except by boat for over 1500km, another dream trip reached. I expect that in high season what we are seeing is nothing compared to the views you get then and behind the cloudy outlook there are probably vast layers of beautiful rugged Patagonian mountains that we have missed but for us it was still a great journey and one we will just have to come back and do again! It was amazing though how our captain navigated this huge vessels through these small channels, at times the width being a mere 180 metres, at times it was as if you could touch the small islands we were passing, I could definitely see why the other ship was now a ship wreck so to speak!
 
In amongst the channels was a small island with a very important 2 white metre statue upon it of 'Stella Maria', famous as the goddess whom protects all sailing vessels in the world, it might sound sad but it was a real privilege and pretty unique experience to be able to sail past her . Sounding the horn 3 times as we passed to symbolise our presence and be protected, a ritual of every vessel when passing. By now the weather was very erratic but it seemed that every time we all went outside it rained and was freezing then as soon we went back inside the sun came out!! This continued for quite a while as we headed further through the narrow channels.
 
Soon we reached the bizarre town of Puerto Eden, a small town perched in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the water surrounded by snow capped mountains with a mere 140 people residing here. How they survive here I will never know, but it was good to see that their housing in many ways looked quite substantial, multi-coloured bright huts/houses dotted about, still it must be a hard existence here. Slowly the locals came out on their boats to pick up goods from our ship and we watched in wonder at how these people live here. Then just as everyone was racing to get back inside as the usual heavens had opened, we suddenly saw the most incredible rainbow we have ever seen form over one of the small islands! It was right in front of us, so vibrant and so low to the ground, with another rainbow then forming above it. Everyone just stood taking it in, amazed with what was it front of us a true gem. Thankfully this meant no rain for a while so we chatted with an ozzie couple outside for a while, then once the cargo had been unloaded, a few locals had boarded and the chains had bizarrely been cleaned of sea water, the boat was turned around and further south it headed through channels of green and snow capped mountains either side.
 
TO BE CONTINUED.............