Our long string of rest days is finally over! We are back riding – much to everyone’s relief. We will get to the riding days later. First we have to share what it was like to spend 58 hours on the ferry from Puerto Natales to Caleta Tortel. This ferry is run by the Chilean government to keep the villages of Puerto Eden and Caleta Tortel supplied, and to make it possible for cars to connect from the Carretera Austral to the southernmost provinces of the country. All of the road routes require crossing into Argentina.

The boat is not fancy – it’s not a cruise ship – it is very much a long-haul ferry. There is a car deck that fits about 30 cars (31 on our trip), and on one side of the boat there is space for passengers. The lower deck has a seating area for 30 people along with a 30-person lounge that doubles as the dining hall. The tickets include all meals, which are utilitarian but perfectly fine. The upper deck has seating for the remaining 110 passengers. Our seats were in the quieter, lower deck. I can very much recommend choosing this lower area if you ever plan to take this ferry. Not only was it more spacious and also quieter, we also got to eat first at every meal. Mealtimes were 9am, 1pm, and 7pm, but each set of 30-seats has a half hour. The highest numbered seats ate at 11am, 3pm, and 9pm!

The ferry was scheduled to depart on Wednesday, Feb 3 at 5am. However, all passengers were required to be on board the night before by 10pm. We happily got on the boat at 9 and found our assigned seats in the lower area of the boat. The seats are better than airplane seats – they reclined pretty far. Alice and Jason were next to the windows and their seats were nicely spaced. H and I were across the aisle, with less space. We basically had the people in front of us reclined into our laps! It was fine though, and in the end we slept ok.

The morning of departure I felt the engines turn on at 6am and thought… how nice, we are moving. At 8am I peeked out the window to see that we were still at the dock! Apparently 5 of the 8 bathrooms were not working, and the boat needed to wait for a maintenance crew from Punta Arenas. At 9 am the crew was done and the boat left the dock to cheers.

Then… at 10am… the boat turned around. It turns out the problem with the bathrooms was back and it was now worse. In fact, it wasn’t until 3pm that the bathrooms were cleared of what had been blocking them: yerba mate, diapers, and a pair of headphones. The boat’s actual departure was 10 hours late!

There was nothing to do on the boat but read, socialize, watch the scenery, play video games, or sleep. The kids thought it was in fact quite delightful to have absolutely no limits on screen time. They weren’t always thrilled with the food choices, but we had brought an immense amount of snacks. The route took us through the Chilean fjords. It was stunning and lovely, but still long. We were lucky and the water was very calm almost the entire journey. No dramamine was needed. The long ride was interrupted by two exciting events.

The first exciting thing to happen, about 34 hours in, was a stop at the tiny hamlet of Puerto Eden. This village is only accessible by boat and relies on this ferry for all supplies. We watched the villagers come get everything off the boat and we were allowed to disembark. We were restricted to a tiny little welcome area where locals were selling specialty foods, knitted hats, and other handicrafts. We bought lobster empanadas!

The second exciting thing was later that evening when we passed a shipwreck! The boat had been deliberately stranded there in 1968 when the captain tried to commit insurance fraud. Instead of sinking it was stranded. The crew were all rescued, the fraud was found out, and the boat has been there ever since. It has trees growing on it and birds nesting in it. It was an incredible sight!

We arrived at our destination, Caleta Tortel, the following morning. The tailwind and a couple shortcuts had cut our delay from 10 hours to 2! Best of all, we were met at the dock by some new friends. Jenny and Curtis read our blog eleven years ago and happened to be on cycle tour and actually in Caleta Tortel at the same time as us! It was such a delight to spend the morning with them, swapping tales and hearing about their adventures. I hope we can see them again either further down the road or back in the US when we are all resting between cycling trips.

The town of Caleta Tortel is unique. Boardwalks connect everything, with no cars allowed. Originally I assumed this was due to the steep terrain and the historical isolation. It was accessible only by ferry until 2003. Then Jason and I took a hike above town and found out for ourselves that the entire area is a bog! The ground was just completely saturated, even at the top of a nearby mountain.

We only spent one rest day in Caleta Tortel, but it was delightful. We walked the entire length of town as a family, accompanied by three friendly dogs (the dogs essentially serve as tourist guides). The girls named them ‘Blackfur’, ‘Patches’, and ‘Oreo’. We walked all the way down to the beach, where H threw sticks for Oreo.

Our intention was to spend two rest days… but as is our habit we left a day early. A cold snap with rain was coming and we had three days to reach the next town of Cochrane. You’ll have to wait for the next update to hear how the ride went!