Day 47 – Punta Arenas, Chile (Cancelled – at sea)

This morning at 4 am, we were suddenly awoken by our crockery and toiletries flying off their shelves and the ship lurching left and right. On peering out of the window, although it was dark, we were greeted by a scene that looked like the Seventh Circle of Hell. We switched on our in-room information channel and soon discovered that the ship was battling through winds of over 90 knots (more than 100 mph). We also realised that we had exited the Chilean fjords and were out in the Pacific Ocean, hence the abrupt change in conditions. Luckily, it was only a couple of hours before we re-entered the fjords and things calmed down again and we were able to get back to sleep.

Upon waking again at around 9 am, rather bleary eyed, we did our painting glass and as we were very tired after a long day yesterday and a sleepless night, we had a little snooze in the afternoon. As we were sailing through the beautiful Chilean fjords the captain, during his daily announcement, confirmed that we had indeed sailed through 100 mph winds during the night, wind-speeds which are way beyond the Beaufort scale. He also announced that once we exited the fjords into the Pacific once again at about 8.30 this evening, we would again experience some pretty rough weather. He advised anyone who suffers from sea sickness to make sure they take their seasick tablets!

Sure enough, almost dot on schedule at around 8:30 pm this evening, as we were eating our dinner and as predicted by the captain, we exited the fjords onto the open ocean and found ourselves in the midst of a boiling cauldron of 20 foot waves and 70 mile an hour winds. It is rather an unnerving experience for those who haven’t sailed in such conditions before. Even those of us who live in the middle of the English Channel rarely see tidal surges of this magnitude. Needless to say lots of people, us included, drank more than their usual ration of wine this evening to fortify their spirits!