We’re on board the Fridtjof Nansen, an exploration ship heading for the Antarctic peninsula*.
We embark around 6:00 pm and leave Valparaiso at 11:00pm. We have an 18 day expedition ahead.

The orientation talks start the next day. The briefing on putting on the polar suit is hilarious: our model stuffs himself into a bright orange fashion crime that is somehow floppy but all encasing. By the end, he’s fully suited up and looking like an astronaut who took a wrong turn on their way to space. It’s also unnerving, as if we ever have to do it ourselves things will have gone seriously pear shaped. 

The two day off shore cruise down Chile’s coast gets the better of some, and the queue at the on board Medical Centre is long, queasy and slightly green.  Not us though, hardened by many white knuckle crossings of New Zealand’s Cook Strait: we scoff at four metre swells and 80kph winds.  Then peace – we enter the northernmost part of the Chilean fjords, heading to Castro, the main town on Chiloé Island. Population about 40,000. I know, it surprises me too. We glide past a tapestry of misty cliffs and emerald hills, intrepid adventurers with all inclusive meals and drinks within arm’s reach. 

Somewhere between the rolling waves and Aperol Sours, the island of Chiloé emerges, a land of legends, ghost ships, and rainbow-hued houses that seem ready to tumble into the sea at any second. In Castro, it’s all about the palafitos – brightly painted houses on stilts, reminding you of a riot of rainbow parrots. The ship’s tenders ferry us ashore to explore the town, which stretches up a steep hill from the small port. It’s much like any other town, but it still feels like we are stepping into a quirky postcard. On the fringe of the main square, the Plaza des Armas, sits a church, Iglesia San Francisco, a simple wooden building painted a cheerful yellow, like a sunbeam from Jesus. The interior is as plain as the exterior, all beautiful wood and with a ceiling reminiscent of a boat hull. Not surprising when you understand boat builders, not stone masons, were the builders.  Not just physically, but also aesthetically, very distant from cold stone churches of Europe with their excess of tiny stained-glass windows. Those ones perfect for creating just enough light to squint through and wonder if that figure is a saint or if you’re on a bad LSD trip.

Along the shore we meet a man with many, many sacks of potatoes – he tells us there are 274 types of native potato and we manage to stop him before he starts naming them or extolling their individual virtues. There’s a strip of local markets where “authentic” souvenirs abound. Here, you’ll find everything from fridge magnets and wooden llama keychains, that saw more factory than forest, and soft toy penguins and whales, so synthetic you can almost see the static electricity arc from the Made in China label. But it’s not all factory-fresh. There are lovely hefty, hand-knit sweaters and scarves, ready to shield you from the Andes winds, or in our case Antarctic chill. 

We spend another week wriggling through narrow channels in Chile’s Patagonian fjords. It’s like a cross between our New Zealand Marlborough Sounds and the Southern Alps, not at all steep as our Fiordland. But it has zillions of islands and passages are sometimes very tight. At times we have to wait for slack tide as the current runs like a river and the ship has to progress at snail pace to navigate the twists and turns.  The crew launch the safety boat to go ahead and sit in the channel measuring the speed of the tide, and we progress at the change, or slack, tide.

Our viewing of the Amalia Glacier is more exciting when the Captain announces we have enough time to launch the zodiacs and take a closer look. I feel a touch of the James Bond vibe as we zip through the mini ice bergs, the skipper avoiding any ice that might damage the propeller. As with glaciers worldwide, Amalia is retreating, irrespective of climate denier opinions.  It’s an ill wind and all that, so we get to see great chunks of ice calving off the glacial face, revealing the intense blue ice within. 

I wonder where the days go. There workshops about reading charts, photography, getting the best from your binoculars, among other things. The lectures and talks vary greatly: some are so dry the presentation slides yawn – others are funny and engaging. While the dedication and enthusiasm of the on board specialists is remarkable, their presentation styles are not uniformly winning. Marcus, the Norwegian historian has the ability to charm and inform simultaneously, while Jean the French geologist, could gold medal in the too much detail Olympics. His descriptions of the formation of the Andes were so…….I can’t remember, I must’ve fallen asleep.

On the seventh day we arrive at Puerto Natales. We have another two days at least until we get to the end of the fjords. The Captain tells us conditions look good for a landing at Cape Horn, but nothing is certain. As he says, Cape Horn is Cape Horn, and anything can happen. Can’t argue with that.

 * You can do a walk through on the website MS Fridtjof Nansen | HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.