Tuesday 10th February Cruising by Easter Island This afternoon we are due to cruise by Easter Island. We are not stopping unfortunately, but will sail slowly by about a mile from shore. Easter Island or Rapa Nui is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. The nearest inhabited island is Pitcairn which is 1,289 miles away. It is hot here and the Pacific Ocean is a deep blue - very lovely. The island is called Easter Island as a Dutch explorer arriv...

Thursday 5th February Valparaiso, Chile We have arrived at our last Chilean port, Valparaiso. This city is built on about 45 hills and rises steeply from the water's edge. This is a container port and we were berthed close to the town centre. You could see it from the ship. Unfortunately we had to take port buses to the terminal which was almost 2 miles away. Once outside the port area we had to walk all the way back to the town centre. We visited the National ...

Tuesday 3rd February Puerto Montt We arrived this morning at our second port in Chile - Puerto Montt. We are again at anchor so it was a tender boat to the shore. The morning was cloudy and when we got off the tender it was raining. Our guide for the morning told us they had 200 days of rain a year! As we left the port and drove to Lake Llanquihue the clouds started to clear and the sun came out. Our first stop on the lake was Puerto Varas. Over the lake the c...

Sunday 1st February Chilean Fjords Yesterday morning we left the Pacific and sailed into one of the Chilean fjords. Although the air was cold it was a clear sunny day. We sailed through some rugged scenery to reach our first glacier. All the glaciers we are seeing are tidewater glaciers - they descend into the sea and the ice breaks off into icebergs. The picture shows the first glacier we saw - the Amalia Glacier. The ice at the edge of the glacier is blue as ...

Friday 30th January Punta Arenas, Chile Since leaving Montivideo we have been sailing south and on Tuesday we were lucky enough to see some whales from our cabin balcony. We think they were humpback whales. Yesterday afternoon we took on a Chilean pilot and we entered the Magellan Straits. The waters in the Straits are very calm and the ship sailed slowly along until we came to Punta Arenas. We anchored there late in the evening. Today the ship's small tender b...