Would You Like a Little Ice in that Sir?

Day 6
During the night our comfortable little ship Via Australis briefly left the security of inland passages and ventured out into the Pacific.  The force of the mighty ocean immediately demonstrated how important the Straits of Magellen became in the times of small wooden built barques trying to navigate from the Atlantic into the Pacific.
By early morning everything was calm once more as we entered the mournfully named Desolation Bay and on into the Ballenero (Whaler) Channel.  Robert Fitzroy the Captain of HMS Beagle named this stretch of water in memory of his whaling boat that was stolen from him by the indigenous people and never recovered.

Navigating along the main part of the Beagle Channel we headed for Pia Fjord, where we dropped anchor and disembarked by tender.  We landed ashore at the foot of the Pia Glacierand and short hike took us up to a lookout point to gain a truly spectacular view across the entire glacier tongue.

At the point where it meets the water the glacier is 1.2 kms wide and the cliff face towers over 250 metres into the sky.

Its length stretches dramatically from high in the mountains all the way to the sea. After this unforgettable experience, we weighed anchor and continued sailing along the northwest arm of the Beagle Channel through the majestic channel that has earned the nickname “Glacier Alley”.


Cruise this stretch of water and you pass glaciers that bear the names Spain, Romanch, Germany, France, Italy and Netherlands.

One comment

  1. Thanks for your blog…great to read your comments on the Via Australis trip. We are Just back from 16 days on Sea adventurer to Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctic Peninsula. Wonderful trip, mostly great weather but some big seas a couple of days. SG was stunning and alive with wildlife if birds penguins and seals.. Antarctica is just spectacular! Run out of download room on iPad, so will be posting photos when we can sort. Enjoy your travels, we still have 4 weeks to go in SOUTH America.
    Toni and Mark Heath, Australians on the Via Australis.

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