Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt...Il Barco Bizarro

We arrive back in Puerto Natales in driving rain and the wind whistling around any creaky signs it can find...Puerto Natales is shrouded in a blanket..we make our booking at the Crazy Darwin Inn for a second time and the price has halved since we went away...such are the vagaries of Inn pricing in Chile! The boat is delayed and we revisit Il Maritimo where all the crew and passengers are in the same boat...or not.
The weather remains bracing all night and into the next day and we are set for a boarding time of 9pm after watching the boat being blown around the bay for most of the morning like a feather in a bird-bath..Fo intimates she has womanly feelings of forboding about the trip...understandable and slightly parrot on shoulder, spooky screeching one toothed tarot reading, blackbeard, squeeky sign of the ´Old Crow´ kind of forboding...i´m looking forward to this little trip..nyet!!
We board at nine, with all the other victims err....i mean passengers. We are all taken..a la ¨Man from Uncle¨ on a large metal moving floor to the deck and we notice the moos coming from all the trailers parked on deck..Oh no a ´livestock holiday´ boat-trip. Many cows are crammed into their respective trailers and a truck load of horses, live stock or dinner tomorrow night?
The cabins are great and there a many familiar travellers from Torres and other trips.
The weather beats at the Porthole. By a combination of gross negligence to the budget and consideration for other human beings (primarily my gentle cat like snoring) we have a four person bunkhouse for two...thankfully in all considerations.
The trip is due to take 3 days and four nights and it is really a booze cruise with Glaciers. Its takes a 1300km route through the Fjords with a deft swipe into the Pacific ocean for 12 hours with hopefully Whale watching and other wildlife joining us periodically.
The first day is overcast , blowy and foggy but the silence is deafening, the views
beautiful. Nothing but glacial hills, festooned with trees and black, cold, deep fjords beneath us, 900m in some cases.
The weather remains close for the first two days and high stakes Poker is going 24 hours a day, largely amongst the teenage german students, the cows are mooing their discontent and the Fog is set in. We venture out into the Pacific stretch, it is rough, the students are revolting (into plastic bags), the whole boat retires to their quarters. On the third day the sun welcomes the dawn. We all race to the deck. Its 360 degrees of beautiful panoramic Chilean Fjords. On this day the whole boat suns itself on deck and we spot whales, seals, sealions?? and a couple of towns, the only sign of life on the incredible virgin 1300km stretch of coastline.
The last evening a Blue whales hump..perhaps..rises majestically in the water beside the boat and there is a great spurt of water..was it a bluey? It makes the trip worthwhile.
A mention must be given to our tour guide. She had a voice like a songbird, was actually 'fast show` material throughout and the last night of Patagonian Bingo should be filmed for a anyone who appreciates vaudeville and ritual humiliation. Her tannoy announcements will ring in my ears for many months until i seek psychiatric help or i get my iPod fixed...thank you Navimag!
We arrive in Puerto Montt with a final Tannoy announcement at 4.30am just after the last aussie ´tot` full of rum has passed out...would the driver of the red truck...sleep is short...Ola! Puerto Montt and hotel bed, the moos are silenced at last, their fate is probably a lomo somewhere....