January 26th - Tierra del Fuego, the Chilean Fjords

 Today we sailed through the Straight of Magellan and the Beagle Channel.  This was the exact route we were supposed to take 22 months ago when the pandemic shortened our Patagonia trip, eliminating the 4-day Tierra del Fuego cruise.  For this reason, I was especially happy that our embarkation point was changed from Ushuaia, Argentina to Punta Arenas, Chile.  I was also delighted to find out that Albie, the tour guide from our Patagonia trip was also a tour guide on this trip!  It was a good decision by Gate1 to cancel the cruise portion of our trip and get us home 2 years ago because I learned from Albie that other tourists that went on that boat had to remain on it for a month when Chile closed their borders!

Sailing down the Beagle Channel, you pass the "Avenue of the Glaciers", also known as "Nation Glaciers" since they were named after countries that were doing polar research.  The first glacier shown is Rome and further down is France.

This afternoon we passed Ushuaia and made a short stop in Puerto Williams, the southern-most Chilean port, to get clearance to go to Antarctica!

The waters have been calm today but we will be entering Drake's Passage in a few hours.  This is a narrow passage around Antarctica that connects the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean, often creating some very treacherous currents.