Laguna San Rafael

or, a trip to the frozen South. We had heard of a tour to Laguna San Rafael, where a glacier comes off the mountain and falls into the sea - so we had to go! We figured that Lisa's mother Marcia might like it too, so we scheduled our trip while she was here. We were right!
We started out on the Mare Australis from Castro in early evening of another sunny clear day. It was fun to be able to see our house from the water and to point it out to some of our shipmates. Little did we know that we were looking at some of their houses too.
That night at dinner, we met our table companions: A couple Susanne and Yves from France, with his sister Martine and their mother, who were spending a few weeks visiting their son, who lives with his Chileno wife and their little daughter in the village of Ten-Ten - you can almost see their house in the photo above. They were charming people, and we soon discovered that English was the language that the most of us had in common. Susanne works for the Brittany Ferry, so she was used to being on a large boat and her English was quite good; and she taught us a little French as well.

The boat made the crossing of the Boca de Guafo, the entrance to Golfo Corcovado between southern Chiloé and the mainland, during the night. We vaguely noticed huge ocean swells as we crossed. We awoke to another gorgeous day traveling south to Puerto Chacabuco, picking our way through the islands on the west side of the main channel. We saw seals, sea otters, and lots of birds - and lots of beautiful scenery.
Berto played with the only other 6 year boy on the boat, Maximiliano, aka Maxi, Gabi read books with Grammie and Mike and Lisa chatted up the Chileans. One of the fun parts of a small cruise ship is that you see the same folks enough to get quite friendly. Aside from us, the only other non-South Americans were our French table mates and a UK based family with an English dad and Chilean mom. The Santiago swells were impressed that a North American family would be living in Chiloe, their version of the end of the earth. We all had fun spotting sea lions, penguins and sunshine from the deck.
All that eating and drinking made Mike tired! Imagine how tired he would have been if he'd had to chase after Berto all day! As it was, there was another 6-year-old on board, and Berto and Max (for Maximiliano) soon were fast friends. They drew pictures together, played tag up top, and played games and puzzles. Berto and Max
By the time we got to Puerto Chacabuco at 6pm it was raining (more typical weather for the province of Aisen, Region XI), and we waited at the top of the fiord for an hour while another few passengers got on (originally from Vienna, as it turned out).
The next morning it was still cloudy, but the clouds couldn't hide the line of snow-capped peaks along the Fiordo Elefante.





For the first time in almost 2 months of summer vacation, Lisa was out of bed before 7 and on top deck trying to capture the morning's pretty light.

We watched, fascinated, as the ship navigated smaller and smaller channels on its way south to the Laguna. Finally we were traveling up a river with low scrub on either side of the boat. The captain had told us the first night that the ship was particularly well suited to this route, as it draws less than 4 meters. We could see why!

Turning a corner, we arrived at Laguna San Rafael and could see the glacier ending in a bay of icebergs. There was just enough sun to make the larger icebergs glow a light blue in the water. We also felt a surprisingly cold wind coming off the glacier - brrr!


We got closer and closer to the glacier, but the first group to visit it, in four small Zodiacs, vanished into the vastness in front of it.

Then, it was our turn to put on our life jackets and get into the boats. Berto was a shade concerned to be in such a small boat. Grammie and Gabi stayed on the cruise ship.
We first visited some small caves torn in the walls of the bay by the ice. On the cliffs were signs indicating where the front of the glacier had been in the past. 100 years ago it extended probably 1.5 km further out into the bay than it does now, and it has been receding about 250 m every decade for the last 30 years or so.

Zooming about in the zodiac between the caves and the glacier a pair of dolphins swam next to the boat. Berto thought it all was big fun. THe smile on our faces lasted for a long time!

We approached the wall of ice. The wall was 80 m high and extended for at least 200m below the waterline. Every few minutes a big piece of the wall would fall into the water. We always saw them after they'd fallen, but our companion Eduardo got a nice video of a big chunk coming down.
The small icebergs ("bergy bits") made a clinking sound as they brushed against each other in the little waves from the boats, and our Zodiacs thumped over the smaller ones. Compacted ice chunks from the bottom of the glacier were as clear as aqua glass. Chunks from higher up on the glacier still had bubbles of air giving them an opaque snowy look.
Our pilot Ricardo took us close to this one, and…

…we broke some off and took it with us! This piece was almost totally clear (you had to look hard to see faint traces of the original ice crystals), which meant that it came from the bottom of the glacier and was very old. The whiter piece you can see above was coarser and came from near the top.

Finally, we had to say goodbye (so the last group could go out in the boats). It was quite an experience that we'll never forget!
Back on board the ship, the crew poured us all (adults) Scotch over 1000-year-old "rocks". It felt odd to be drinking hard liquor at 11:00 in the morning, but we got used to it. Berto took care of Mike's 'ice berg' in a glass, drinking it from a straw as his part of the glacier melted.
We bade a fond farewell to Laguna San Rafael - as another smaller tour vessel, a catamaran we'd seen in Puerto Chacabuco, took their turn. As seems to be the way, the afternoon clouds and drizzle had settled in.
Our luck with the weather ran out, and it rained much of the rest of the day and the next. We stopped in Puerto Chacabuco again for a few hours, and Mike took a tour of a small private park nearby while Lisa and Berto explored the town with Marcia, Gabi and Maxi. We were very glad that we were not sent there for Lisa's teaching! It's small, a bit run-down, and very cloudy and rainy - it gets twice as much rain as Castro, almost 3 meters per year. (By comparison, Boston gets about 1 m.) It reminded Mike of Alaska.

We made some more friends and enjoyed the Captain's Banquet our last night on the ship. Berto charmed his grandmother with his grey slacks and blue sport coat. (Don't tell Grammie it's really parts of his school uniform.) Gabi enjoyed the 30 to 1 ratio of grandmothers and Tias to little girls on the boat. It did not hurt cross table relations that our French table mates have a grand daughter in Castro who looks much like Gabi.

Even Gabi's enojada pout was deemed cute. If the kids want every vacation to be on a Chilean cruise boat we will understand why. They were pampered by the crew and guests.

During the night we crossed Golfo Corcovado again (good planning by the ship company to do this crossing at night!). The swells are deep enough to rock the boat, make open doors bang and wake one up.

With dawn we awoke to smooth inland seas a gorgeous light on Chiloé. Here's the village of Chulchuy, on Isla Lemuy (one of our favorite places here), in the morning light. You can see the church of traditional design, common to many of the little villages here that were on the ecclesiastical circuit.


Approaching Estero de Castro
The twice-weekly boat from Chelin and Quehui, two small islands between Chiloé and the mainland. It's packed with people heading to market.
Here's our house! well, at least both our neighbors' houses. We're between the two most closely space rows of poplars.

If you use your imagination just a little bit, you can see the wall above Berto and Gabi's bedroom window.

Castro in the morning light. What a fun trip!


PS from Lisa: 5 days after our trip ended I was out on a mountain bike ride and looked down to see the boat sailing out for another cruise. I started to get wistful and envious of the folks on the boat. Then I realized they might be looking up at the green hills of Chiloe wishing they lived here. The difference being we get to live where they go on vacation. Summer here has been sublime.