Day 7 - Sunday November 26, 2023 - Pia and Porter Glacier

The captian of the ship, our ship being the Australis, told us that annually, over 50% of all excursions are canceled due to bad weather, such as too windy. So for the past two days, we can consider ourselves extremely lucky that we've been permitted to travel via the zodiacs onto land and see.thus rugged country up close.

We managed to sleep until 7 am! Breakfast was at 8 am. And,.as we were eating, the Pia glacier came into view.  

The glacier was named after Princess Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of the King of Italy.

Lunch was at 12:30 and afterward, we had our second excursion, traveling in, what else, a zodiac, we travelee to another arm of the gorgeous Pia Fjord until we reached the active Porter Glacier.

Once again in the zodiac,.we were taken very close to the glacier. We were told to dress warm. It's almost summer here at the bottom of the world and this afternoon we hit a high of 10 degrees Celsius, about 40 degrees Fahrenheit but in the zodiac, with the wind blowing, the wind chill reminded me of my motorcycle days.

Up close it's amazing to look at. It isn't all smooth and it doesn't look like glass. It craggy and bumpy and you can just imagine where the next piece will fall off as it melts a little. It's called calving when a all piece falls away from theother piece.

My long underwear and hat, gloves and neck warmer are all stowed temporarily to be put back on tomorrow for our next excursions to Aquila glacier and Condor glacier.

Christian, our guide from Odyssey 

Another day, another beer!  This one was good.  I'm going to try to find this in AZ

Today's adventures over with, we are leaving the Beagle Channel and briefly venturing into the Pacific Ocean. We were told to batten down the hatches in our room. If we had anything fragile, leave it on tohe floor because it was going to be there anyway.  

We will enter the Cockburn Channel through the night and head towards the Alberto De Agostini National Park, named after an Italian priest who worked with the inhabitants of the region during the first half of the 20th century.

De Agostini sound is surrounded by numerous glaciers and mountains with steep jagged peaks. 

In the morning we will visit the Aguila Glacier, which is located on a calm glacial lagoon surrounded by a primitive forest. After disembarking from the Zodiacs, we will walk along the edge of the lagoon towards the base of the glacier.

In the afternoon we will board our Zodiacs once more and make our way towards the end of the narrow fjord to Condor Glacier. Without leaving the boats we will admire the beauty of the glacier and the narrow rocky corridor that it has sculpted.