South America 2016: Amala Glacier and Chilean Fiords- March 10, 2016

My favourite day on the whole cruise!! It was 10 celsius, rainy with poor visibility when we navigated through the fiords. What a desolate place .... nobody lived there!! Our ship sailed up the fiords to Amalia Glacier, did a very slow 360 degree turn and then sailed back down the fiords. We were due to approach the glacier at 4 pm. We were the only ship there, in fact there was no civilization for hundreds of kilometres in any direction. As we approached the glacier, the clouds lifted and we were treated to a dazzling "change" in the view of the glacier and at the end, the clouds lifted even more and we got a wonderful panorama. There are many photos we took and I will just post them here and hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Here is the post from the ship's navigator for this day:

"In the early hours of the morning we exit the Magellan strait on a north westerly course and after Isolates Evangelistas we altered course more to north staying 12 Nm from the Chilean coast before approaching Isla Utrera, Isla Betancourt and Canal Castro.

The Magellan Straights are particularly famous, as they have offered a safe passage for many years, for vessels to pass around South America without having to navigate the treacherous waters of Cape Horn. They were first discovered in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailor, who was commissioned by the Spanish King to find a faster route to the Spice Islands of the East. Until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, the Magellan Straits were the main passage for vessels wishing to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans in safety.

Amalia Glacier, also known as Skua glacier, is a tidewater glacier located in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park on the edge of the Sarmiento Channel. The glacier originates in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. From 1945 to 1986, its terminus retreated 7 km, being, along with the recession the O'Higgins Glacier, the most dramatic retreat of the glaciers of the mentioned ice field during that period. The glacier partially surrounds Reclus volcano and erodes the northern flank of it."