We are now well into the Chilean fjords, and woke up early to see a glacier. Sadly, as I can’t post photos from the ship, I’ll try to capture a view of the glacier from the ship’s panoramic camera. (Later: I couldn’t, as the panoramic camera doesn’t seem to operate in real time.)
First though, our location from this map site:
A zoom:
An even closer zoom, as we’re ensconced in the fjord.
As I write this, while it’s still dark, we’re well into the fjord, whose name I can’t seem to find. Our ship’s log says it’s “Seno Fjord”, but I think “Seno” just means “fjord” in Spanish. Now we’ve just stopped to observe the Tempanos Glacier, though it’s pouring rain and very cold. It’s my first close-up view of a glacier save the Khumbu Icefall, which debouches off Mount Everest.
Sort of what it looks like from the ship’s panoramic camera, but the cliffs of the fjord are much closer; about a quarter-mile away. My photos will come later.
NOTE: As Michael points out in the comments, these are photos from yesterday as the panoramic camera and its attendant locator map are apparently way behind schedule. See comments for better information about where we are.
Leaving the fjord to head south:
Now we’re headed to Villa Puero Edén (population 176), a small fishing town that’s accessible only by boat. It has no roads—only wooden sidewalks—and is reputed to be WET. As Wikipedia notes,
Villa Puerto Edén has an extremely wet subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) and is widely reputed to be the place in the world with the highest frequency of rainfall, though according to Guinness World Records the highest frequency of rain in a year occurred at Bahia Felix, a little further south, with only eighteen rainless days in the whole of 1916.
Puerto Edén will be the first place where we actually disembark since we left Valparaiso. I have waterproof gear.
Oh, those were the days…
Even if you aren’t soaked, you’re wet. Even if you aren’t frozen, you’re cold.
If you get a taste for this type of traveling (high latitudes), maybe I could recommend the fjords of Kalaallit Nunaat, or Grønland, or Greenland.
Eighteen days a year without rain. Probably do not have an exterior paint salesman in the whole town.
The webcam didn’t send anything new since yesterday early morning. The last view was taken just outside the channel between Isla Fitz Roy and Isla Humos,in the Chonos archipelago.
Jerry. That last photo & the last map is wrong, that’s where you were when the feed last updated over a day ago. Since then you’ve been out into the Pacific, sailed around a headland & entered another fjord [the red track I’ve drawn]. The Témpano glacier is just right of the red cross below:
https://flic.kr/p/2hD5pT2
So really lost?
The layout of the map of where he is & where he was over a day ago are coincidentally similar. Image 3 map [where he is] & image 5 map [yesterday, where he was] easily confused I suppose.
Serious ice nearby! 🙂
Close up it looks like someone traveling around the surface of the brain.
Jerry’s voyage today is very short.
It’s from the glacier [top red cross] to Eden [to the right of bottom red cross on the fjord shore] – two or three hours perhaps?
https://flic.kr/p/2hD8FC5
Thanks for the update. I’ll tell readers to look at the comments. It’s annoying that we don’t see our real-time position and video on the last site.
This is so thrilling
With the miserable conditions, it appears – in some views – like one of those movies about old seafaring, battling the elements.
Not sure if that qualifies as the middle of nowhere, but on the rare clear day, you can probably see nowhere from there.
Sometimes nowhere is the best possible place to be.
What is amazing is that PCC is managing to make WEIT posts from the middle of nowhere. It will not surprise me if he manages to post from Antarctica.
He’s in the wrong ocean for Middle of Nowhere.
(There’s an easter egg in old MacOS’s map control panel based on that joke.)
Lucky you! 🙂 🙂
“..the place in the world with the highest frequency of rainfall”
It’s ironic that, IIRC, Chile, at its other (northern) end, also has the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert. Not too surprising that the capital is ‘halfway’ between.
I should have added the qualification ‘..driest NON-POLAR place..’
Looking at Villa Puero Edén on Google Earth (48 degrees S), the gallery images make it look damp, as expected. Charming. I’d buy a locally made souvenir out of sympathy.
Unless Adam & Eve are waterproof fish “Puerto Edén” must be a marketing move, the same as the name “Greenland” [Grfnland] reputedly was. Reputedly.
I’d love to go there – rainier than Britland! I think you can spot sea otters thereabouts & some sort of deer. One disgruntled reviewer using the ferry service complained of nowt to do at that stop & no cafes nor public toilets! That was 2012 though & I think s/he didn’t have a floating hotel only a short boat ride away [there must surely be toilets ashore for visitor non-locals though!].
I’d say ‘Buy Icelandic’, pretty wet there, but they are getting quite rich again after 2008.
‘Public Inconvenience” land? Or do they still use that ‘Public Noninconvenience’ terminology in Britland? I’ve not been for 5 years or so.
“Public conveniences” has faded away – “public toilets”, “disabled toilets” etc is current usage in my experience. We also have them labelled as having “baby changing” facilities now, which will presumably confuse E.T. & other non-Brits.
Actually, global warming might make Greenland one of the few decent humanly inhabitable places in a hundred years. In a selfish mood, maybe go there then and afterwards campaign to rename it ‘Poisonous-snakeland’ or ‘Religious-looneyland’ or etc..
Maybe PCCE will report on the availability of such facilities.
I saw a pic on Google of a cat strolling the Puerto Edén boardwalk. I expect PCC[E] & said kitty will be conversing right now about serious matters concerning fish.
And I’m sure such an encounter will by photographically documented. We should see evidence at some point where his bandwidth widens.
I found you based on your map here to be at -48.711877, -74.194327. Obviously, not all these decimals are significant but …
Hard to believe they would be. A millionth of a degree of latitude is about five inches.
Ship has just dropped anchor [I assume – it’s not moving any more] 300 metres off Puerto Edén where the yellow pin is:
https://flic.kr/p/2hDdU5u
Nice view. Is this from Google Earth?
yes, screenshot of. I plugged the latlong for the ship into the Google Earth search bar & one is pulled down to the planet & it plants a yellow pin. Needs a special effect though *swooping sound, burning re-entry & SPLASH!* for watery pins.
Your cinematic sensibility is undoubtedly the result of viewing numerous examples produced by other humanoids on your planet. I can well appreciate that. Thanks for the tip. I shall try it myself.
Yes, that was at dawn this morning near the glacier. As of three minutes ago they’ve sailed approx 50 km south to -49.12774 -74.36910 –
a kilometre or two offshore from Puerto Edén. That’s according to CRUISEMAPPER which has been accurate up to now.