Sixty-Odd People, Eight Horses and One Boat

When I was considering my return north from the deep south of Patagonia, I found I had four options:

1. I could backtrack my way north through Ruta 3 in Argentina, heading back through Rio Gallegos and Puerto Madryn before cutting across to Bariloche. This was the fastest overland route since Ruta 3 is entirely paved and well serviced.
2. I could head up Ruta 40, taking an four-day road trek along the Argentine side of the Andes and Patagonian Icefields – along unpaved roads and tracks that are prone to closer due to high rains or snow during the spring.
3. I could fly up through Chile, from Puerto Natales to Santiago.
4. I could sail on the Navimag ferry, between Puerto Natales and Puerto Montt, spending four nights and three days aboard ship, seeing some of the Chilean fjords along the way.

I didn't want to fly. I didn't want to backtrack. I didn't want to put up with the potential delays inherent with Ruta 40. When I was putting a rough outline of my trip, before leaving Canada, I wanted to head north up the Pacific coast in Chilean Patagonia. With no road access in Chile to Puerto Natales, the Navimag ferry was my only logical option.

On October 27th, 2009, I walked over the gangplank onto Navimag's Puerto Eden, reflecting upon the fact that it was almost a month to the day when I completed my journey up the Amazon River, aboard the N/M Santerém. Both vessels doubled as cargo transports. Both vessels plied nautical routes representing just about the only way to travel between their respective ports, short of flying. However, while I was sweating my ass off in the Amazon the previous month, surrounded by passengers made up primarily of local Brazilians; I was now shivering in the biting winds of Chilean Patagonia, boarding ship with backpackers and travellers from all over the world.

There is one more similarity between the Navimag transports and the Amazonian riverboats: the sailing schedules aren't worth spit. Amazon journeys are notorious for delays due to the on-loading and off-loading of cargo at various ports, and there is also the occasional issue when a ship runs aground because crew-members are engaging in a little hanky-panky with passengers on the bridge. The Navimag ferries are at the mercy of ridiculously unpredictable Patagonian weather systems; with occasional further delays due to crew-member accidents and all the issues with Chilean maritime regulations that result from said accidents. (Oooooh. Foreshadowing.)

I arrived in Puerto Natales, Chile, in the early afternoon of October 26th, expecting to board the ship at 7:00pm that evening. The Puerto Eden was due to sail early the next morning. When I got to the Navimag office – to pay my berth fee and pick up my ticket – I found out that, due to weather issues, the ship wasn't expected into port until 9:00am the next day. Passengers were told that the new schedule consisted of a 1:00pm boarding the next day, with a 7:00pm evening sailing. We were starting off with a twelve-hour delay.

The next morning, I left my hostel at around 11:00am and headed down to the waterfront. As I hiked over the crest of the last hill before the water, I saw the Puerto Eden. She was in port, sitting in the middle of the harbour. The plan, it seemed, was coming together.

My First View of the Puerto Eden in Puerto Natales Harbour

How naive I was.

At the time, it didn't occur to me that it was a trifling odd that the transport wasn't yet moored. At least, the full significance of this fact didn't hit me until I arrived at the Navimag boarding centre, where I was told that there was yet another problem. Due to the extremely high winds in the Puerto Natales area, the ship wasn't able to dock.

The new plan was to hope that the winds died down enough to allow the vessel to dock around mid-afternoon. The cargo and the passengers from the voyage down from Puerto Montt would be offloaded; and we could board afterwards. The new (tentative) boarding time was set for 7:00pm. The new (tentative) sailing time would be 6:00am the next morning.

Now we were facing at least a twenty-four hour delay.

Suddenly, the bottle of vodka, the bottle of whiskey, the two bottles of wine and four bottles of beer I'd purchased for the three-day voyage took on a whole new significance. Yes, I had a lot of alcohol. All of us passengers did. At the Navimag office, they didn't so much suggest, as encourage the passengers to bring their own alcohol aboard. "It's cheaper than if you buy it at the ship's bar!" How can you possibly argue with that logic?

Looking around at the faces of the fellow passengers in the boarding centre, I could tell that we were all thinking the same thing. If things continued at this rate, we'd have to break into our stores before we'd even boarded ship. I seriously considered going back into town and buying more alcohol.

Fortunately, there were no further delays. At least, there were no further delays with regards to boarding the ship. (Oooooh. More foreshadowing.)

Finally Docked

Boarding Ship – Notice All the Shopping Bags Full of Alcohol
(I Stole This Photo From Benny)

By 7:30pm, all passengers were aboard and our belongings were squared away in our berths. It was almost time for sunset. Cargo would continue to be loaded well into the night and by the time we woke up the next morning, the ship would be underway, travelling through the Chilean Patagonian channels. I stood on deck and gazed upon the town of Puerto Natales for the last time. Or so I thought. (Okay, it's now pretty freaking obvious what comes next.)

The "C" Berths

Looking Back on Puerto Natales (Aboard Ship)

Once onboard ship, we had our first meal, and many of us hung around the dining area / common room afterward; breaking into our first bottles of beer or wine, chatting and playing cards until the wee hours. The next morning, we were awoken at 7:00am by an announcement, over the ship's loud public address system, telling us that the ship was thirty minutes from sailing through the English Narrows (an eighty-metre gap for a ship thirty-or-so-metres wide; the tightest point in the journey). Also, breakfast was now being served in the dining area.

I jumped down from my bunk, got dressed, wolfed down scrambled eggs and bread, and headed up to the bridge of the transport. One of the interesting things about the Navimag vessels is that passengers have free access to the bridge. We were encouraged to visit and chat with the captain and the bridge crew. This access was especially fascinating while the transport negotiated some of the narrower sections of the Chilean fjords. The captain was shouting new headings at the helm officer every minute or so. I spent a large amount of time studying the nautical charts along with Bill, a older commercial salmon fisherman from Alaska. It was misting with rain, but passengers lined the upper decks regardless, taking pictures of the channels.

The Bridge

About forty-five minutes later, we were sitting around chatting in the common area when the ship shuddered ever so slightly. Bill was the first to say it.

"Something's wrong."

A quick look out the windows confirmed the unusualness of our situation. There was no wake – the ship had stopped. When we went out on deck to look at our surroundings, we found the ship in the middle of a relatively wide channel, with an unobstructed path forward. We didn't seem to be stopped for any reasons of navigation. We hadn’t hit anything. No alarms were sounding. But the bridge was closed off. And those of us looking out to the stern – onto the vehicle deck of the ship – had noticed a crewmember running towards the cargo hold with what looked like a stretcher.

No official information was forthcoming. Nobody could find any of the crewmembers. Those passengers that were on the bridge when access was closed off reported seeing the captain receiving a call through the ship's communication system before ordering passengers out.

Thirty minutes passed. Around 8:45am, we felt the ship's engines re-engaging. But we were making a wide turn.

Finally, an announcement was made: a crewmember had been in an accident resulting in non-life-threatening injuries, but that, on the recommendation of the ship's doctor, the Puerto Eden was returning to Puerto Natales so that the patient could be offloaded to a hospital.

Chatter started immediately amongst the passengers. Expressions of concern over the crewmember's wellbeing mixed with questions over what this would mean for the sailing schedule and discussion about whether a two-hour voyage back to port was really the fastest way to respond to an on-ship medical emergency.

We sailed back through the English Narrows. It was actually sunny this time around, with a gorgeous rainbow to the ship's stern. There was more picture-taking. And then we stopped again – still an hour-and-a-half out of Puerto Natales. No explanation; no announcement.

Negotiating the Channels

The ship just sat there. The best that we could gather from Christobel, our Navimag guide for this sailing, was that a fast boat was now being sent out from port to meet the ship and ferry the patient back to shore. He had no timetable for all of this, nor could he really guess since he had no experience with this type of incident. Indeed, he had little experience with any type of incident given that this was his very first voyage.

When the large speedboat finally arrived, thirty minutes later, we watched from the upper-decks as the stretcher and the doctor were transferred over. The speedboat sped back towards Puerto Natales. But the Puerto Eden didn't move. The ship just continued to sit there. Again: no explanation; no announcement. Again, some of us went hunting for Christobel. When we found him, he explained that the latest information he had from the bridge was that the ship was awaiting the arrival of inspectors from the Chilean Navy – Chilean maritime regulations required that, after any such incident, that naval inspectors had to sign off before the ship could continue the voyage.

After two-and-a-half hours, there were no signs of inspectors. Then ship started moving again. The problem was that we were still heading the wrong way. There was a second official announcement. The crewmember was now in hospital in Punta Arenas and was doing well (which was a huge relief to us – now we could be entirely concerned with when the ship was going to get underway without feeling like complete asses.) However, we needed to return to Puerto Natales for the inspection. We were told that the inspection was expected to take a few hours and that, as long as there were no further problems, we would be underway again at 6:00pm.

How to Pass the Time on a Ship Going Nowhere

Given the ridiculousness of our circumstances, we started drinking right after lunch. When we approached port again, a few people asked whether it would be possible for passengers to disembark during the inspection – I'm fairly sure they wanted to go into town for more alcohol. But no such luck. The ship sat out in the harbour for four hours while the inspectors came and went. I guess there were no further problems because we sailed out of Puerto Natales again right at 6:00pm.

At 8:00pm, we sailed through the English Narrows for the third time – this time, in twilight and foggy conditions. In the last fourteen hours, we'd made a lot of progress. But we did get to see the English Narrows – one of the highlights of the voyage – three times. So I guess we got incredible value for money.

The rest of the voyage went without incident – the captain put the hammer to the engines and managed to negate the delay caused by the accident. We disembarked in Puerto Montt, at 8:00am on October 31st – three days and four nights later.

What the Hell is 'Saucepan With Rice'? I Still Don't Know, and I Ate It.
(I Also Stole This Photo From Benny)

Let's be clear: despite the cost, and the fact that the ship caters quite well to foreign travellers, the Navimag journey is not a cruise. It's a quirky sail up the Chilean coast, on a transport boat. We had trucks ferrying horses parked out back, only a few metres from the doors to the lower-cost C berths. We were provided with three square meals a day. The food wasn't spectacular, but it filled us up and kept us going – sitting on a ship all day can be tiring work – even if it wasn't entirely evident what exactly it was that we were eating.

Feeding People

Feeding Horses

We got to experience the full gamut of Patagonian weather, from rain, to sun, to snow, and back again in the span of fifteen minutes. 

Rain: an Unshockingly Common Sight

Rainbow Behind, or From Rain to Sun in Ten Minutes

We got to see a few sights along the way, running out to the outdoor decks every time Christobel would announce something of interest along the way.

A Floating Shipwreck

The Chilean Patagonian Andes

But, above all, what made the journey for me were the passengers. I met a lot of great people aboard ship.

I'd been travelling with Martina since my second day in El Calafate, sharing many cups of bad coffee and good hot chocolate as we had to kill an entire day in Puerto Natales. I first started chatting with Peter and Carol, an older couple from Australia, whilst in the waiting room of the Navimag boarding centre. Onboard ship, I met Colm, Benny and Emily; all long-term backpackers like me. The Lenny, back in October, was almost two years into his travels. There was Brian, a desalination specialist from Melbourne. Tanya and Murray were taking the scenic route home – on an extended travel break whilst heading back to Australia after a stint living in England. I spent time with Sean and Allison, a couple from South Africa, who were travelling for a year with their three young children – Jonathan, 11, Stephanie, 9, and Sebastian, 7. And then there was Bob, the retired veterinarian from Iowa Falls, travelling with his brother-in-law Bill (the Alaskan salmon fisherman) and their friend Brian.

Troublemakers (From L to R: Brian, Colm, Benny, Me, The Lenny, Emily, Tanya, Murray)

These were friendships forged through drinking, lots of pointless card games, and by suffering through the same ludicrous situations together day after day after day. And there were plenty of ludicrous situations: onboard movies that sucked, trying to feed horses, the shipboard bingo game, the Navimag dance party, etc., etc.

Preparing for More Troublemaking

Waiting Around for the Bingo

Bingo Winners Had to Dance

Last Night Aboard Ship: A Navimag Dance Party(I Stole This Photo From Lenny)

Refueling After Getting Off the Ship in Puerto Montt
(I Also Stole This Photo From Lenny)

I'm not sure I could recommend Navimag to everybody. The voyage was relatively expensive – somebody aboard ship pointed out that you can get four-day Caribbean cruises and all-inclusive week-long stays in Cuba for around the same price I paid for the Navimag journey – during low season nonetheless.

But I've never been on a four-day Caribbean cruise or an all-inclusive stay in Cuba for a reason.

Because I'd rather pay for an experience – ludicrous as it may have been.

And Navimag is an experience.

Related Entries:
1. The Long, Slow Boat Ride up the Amazon