Hi Everyone,
We woke up in Punta Arenas this morning and you could hear the wind shaking through all the buildings. Sadly, the wind was so strong that all of the tours to Tierra del Fuego were cancelled as was anything involving a boat. Our first order of business was to make sure that we had everything we needed for our time in Torres del Paine so we went to the supermarket and picked up huge amounts of food and supplies, as well as the hiking store for some gear for Evelyn and some waterproofing for my boots.
In the afternoon we parted ways and I went for an 8km hike to the ship museum (one of the only things open on a Sunday). The first half of the hike was beautiful, along the amazing seafront, with lots of seabirds and some great sculptures and artwork commemorating the maritime heritage. The second half was less glamorous as I was walking beside a large road through the naval docks and working port of Punta Arenas. However, I did manage to catch a glimpse of the Noosfera, which I had forgotten would be here. For those of you unfamiliar, the Noosfera is the new name for the old James Clark Ross (JCR) ship which was a UK research vessel but was sold to Ukraine and is currently in dock in Punta while waiting for ports to become available in Ukraine.
Finally, I made it to the ship museum, it was incredibly cool. They had full scale models, to original designs, of the Nao Victoria (Magellan's ships used for the circumnavigation), the Beagle (Darwin's ship) and the James Caird (the small boat Shackleton sailed across Drake passage to get help for his crew on Elephant Island). All of these were incredible, the Victoria was an incredible shape, very short and tall, a classic Spanish carrack, while the Beagle was surprisingly similar in some ways to a modern research ship, especially in the layout of the cabins. The James Caird was incredible, it is so small, only a few metres long, but somehow survived 80kt winds and ice building up to 15 inches deep on deck, worse conditions than the ones we ran away from in a modern research ship!
The journey back felt a lot longer than the one out, though I did meet a couple of German ladies who were also looking for the museum and similarly exasperated by how far it was. I had a nice singalong on my own as I walked back in, and then in the evening Evelyn and I made some pasta and packed for the journey to Torres del Paine!
05/02/23
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