Chaiten

Day two on the Esperanza. Windy, rougher seas as we sail west back into the Pacific away from the channels of the archipelago. Saw some whale spout and two sweeping albatrosses, but they were too far away to capture with the camera. We passed through The Gulf of Corcovado and toward the Darwin Channel, named for Charles and among the places he explored as he developed his concepts about evolution.

The people living with us on Navimag are fascinating. They are serious travelers and get all around the world. I met Megan, a schoolteacher who seems to have worked just about everywhere from Central America to Cambodia to Thailand. And Maria, born in Germany. Her name was supposed to be Marie Louise but, "They didn’t get it right in the hospital the day I was born. So I am Maria!“ She’s been traveling since October 2022–4 months. She worked in southern Mexico near Puerto Vallarta saving sea turtles and then went to Ecuador and lived with a family where she did volunteer work. From there to Buenos Aires and then Bolivia and Chile and now on the Esperanza working her way to Argentina and eventually her job in Holland. But if she could, she would just as soon keep traveling.

That evening as the sun set, a band of bright gold arose above the sea and we watched the orb slowly melt like orange sherbet into the Patagonian horizon.

Navimag Recommendations