Puerto Eden

14 February 2024

PUERTO EDEN

Position: Chilean canals, just past Puerto Eden

Jeez, we don’t even know where to start. We fall from one surprise into another. Just sailing through these fjords is an event in itself. High steep walls alternate with small islands and wide inlets. Sometimes it is so narrow that other shipping has to be warned first, sometimes it is just open water. The wind has been mentioned before. From one moment to the next you have the so-called Rachas here, fall winds between the mountains, which can be as strong as force 9-10. And then suddenly the sun shines again and it is windless. The nights are cold, you clearly notice the influence of the glaciers on the Patagonian icecap.

On Monday, we were at the foot of the Pio XI glacier, the largest of all. That was really amazing, we sailed about 20 miles into the fjord, accompanied by a school of dolphins, and watched the glacier get bigger and bigger. We anchored in a small bay about 2 miles from the foot of the Glacier.

The cameramen captured amazing drone footage and it was a succession of wow-moments. We took the dinghy a little closer to the calving foot of the glacier, not too close of course because pieces kept breaking off. After three hours, we weighed anchor again and sailed out of the bay with two topsails, again accompanied by a school of dolphins.

After this more than fantastic day, we sailed on to Puerto Eden, where we arrived early in the morning. With Easter Island, this village is considered one of the most isolated inhabited places in Chile. Some of the last remaining original inhabitants of this area, the Kaweshkar, live here. There are only footpaths and a boat comes from the mainland once a month. We walked around on it for two hours and then anchored up again for the next 90 miles of Fjords. Tomorrow we will sail on the open ocean again for the first time