In this section we will discover two excellent routes to enjoy the Chilean Patagonia. Our journey to the Northern Ice Fields on the Skorpios II will give us the opportunity to visit the magnificent San Rafael Glacier and the spectacular Fiordo Quitraico.
In addition to this, the route to the Southern Ice Fields on the Skorpios III will be an enriching experience sailing along the well-known Kaweskar explorer’s route.
The M/N Skorpios II sets sail every Saturday from Puerto Montt, a city situated 1,000km southward Santiago, and continues to the San Rafael Glacier, magnificent remains of the last world glaciation. The Skorpios takes you on a Dream Cruise for 7 days and 6 nights sailing along the spectacular channels and archipelagos, where the vigorous nature is at its maximum splendor, and the actions of man seem almost imperceptible, with islands of light geography, scattered around the vast sea.
We will visit fishmonger villages and isolated towns like Puerto Aguirre and Queilen, Castro city; Fiordo Quitraico with its thermal baths and San Rafael Lagoon National Park, declared Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO in 1978, with its magic and spectacular Glacier of more than 30,000 years old with its multicolor towers of more than 70m high that end in the sea.
During our journey on the M/N Skorpios II we will discover the wonders of the world history, visiting astonishing places like Fiordo Quitraico and San Rafael Glacier. Certainly San Rafael Glacier is a magical spectacle; here as if in another dimension the ancient history of the planet finds the man of today.
As a nature sanctuary, San Rafael Lagoon is home to a great variety of prodigal marine fauna and flora that live in harmony not disturbed by the stealthy passing of the Skorpios, whose magic can be seen sailing on safe vessels towards the Glacier of 2,000m wide and its towers of 70m high… then, surrounded by the most incredible ice floes, dazzled by its shapes and colors, it seems inevitable to toast with a 12-year-old whisky in the presence of this amazing 30,000-year-old ice block.
Besides, the beautiful Fiordo Quitraico, which means “fire waters” in Mapuche language, is a fiord with great snowy peaks and thick forests, where the flora grows wild, spontaneously and is full of color with ferns and high trees with dense foliage, which constitute luxuriant and unique vegetation in a warm microclimate next to a calm and transparent sea.
The M/N Skorpios III, the other option we offer, heads for the Southern Ice Field setting sail every Sunday at daybreak from Puerto Natales (Natales Port) situated at 247km northwest of Punta Arenas, on a 5-day cruise along the channels and fiords going round the Southern Ice Field in the Chilean Patagonia, considered the third freshwater reserve in the world and home to the biggest and most spectacular glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere.
From the Skorpios terminal in Puerto Natales we will start our journey along Angostura Kirke (Kirke Narrow) heading north along Morla Vicuña Channel, Seno Unión (Unión Inlet), Collingwood, Sarmiento channel, Concepción and Wide channels to end up in a beautiful place known as Seno Eyre (Eyre Inlet).
We will have the opportunity to visit the glaciers and the famous Puerto Edén.
The motor ship Skorpios III will approach Pío XI Glacier, the biggest glacier in South America, which has a surface area of 1,263km2 and is situated in Bernardo O'Higgings National Park. Around 12:30pm we will start our journey back sailing along Seno Eyre, Grappier Channel, and Paso del Indio (Indian Passing). We will disembark in Puerto Edén, situated about 400km north of Puerto Natales.
This town is situated in Wellington Island, and its first inhabitants belonged to a native tribe in the region, the Kaweskar or Alcaluf.
Today, the last members of this tribe about to become extinct live here. Sailing along these channels and fiords, we will be dazzled by a landscape of spectacular light and shadow contrasts, where the mountain melts with the sea full of inlets, fiords and falls, forming an unparallel maze of beautiful channels explored by ancient sailors like Ladrillero, Darwin and Fitz Roy, among many others. In this area Nature speaks through a great variety of flora and fauna.
Those who love the world from an ecological point of view will be dazzled by different species: guanay cormorant, steamer duck, bottlenose dolphins, imperial shag, cypress, lenga, Antarctic beech, fern, and more. We will enter Paso del Abismo (Depth Passing) and Wide Channel to reach Amalia Glacier, situated in the central part of the Southern Ice Field. Its white silhouette seems to hang from steep mountains to place its ice masses on the Peel Marsh waters.
In the Chilean Patagonia there are many glaciers that flow slowly into the Pacific Ocean, changing and giving shape to the landscape over the centuries.
Pío XI Glacier, an ice giant situated in the North of the Southern Ice Field, at the end of Seno Eyre. This is the biggest glacier in the Southern Hemisphere and has a surface area of 1,242km2 (bigger than Santiago, Chile's capital). This a real ice giant with a front of around 6km wide and towers that go high up to 75m high, and 64km long.
Pío XI Glacier is thousand of years old, and one of the 48 glaciers that form the Southern Ice Field which has a surface area of 13,000km2 and 350km along the Andes Mountains.
Here the M/N Skorpios III will approach this glacier to sail through icebergs of different sizes and shapes, with colorful shades of blue, light blue, and white that will dazzle the visitor.
Going along the Peel Marsh, we will see Amalia Glacier, situated in the central part of the Southern Ice Field. Seeing its long silhouette that descends from the Andes Mountains is a real spectacle that moves the visitors, with those ice towers and colorful contrast with the surroundings.
Later we will enter Calvo Marsh where we will see 6 glaciers, going along the waters covered with ice floes of incredible colors, and diverse shapes and sizes, which will be a pleasant excursion |
