Above: Sailing into Punta Arenas, a tugboat ready to help us moor at the quayside.

To quote from Wikipedia: “Punta Arenas is a city near the tip of Chile’s southernmost Patagonia region. Located on the Strait of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, it’s often used as base for excursions to the surrounding wilderness and Antarctica”.

My main activity today was a spell of kayaking on the Magellan Straits, and what a splendid adventure it turned out to be.

From the whole ship just ten of us were brave enough (mad enough?) to have a go. Here we all are:

None of us were experienced kayakers so the preliminary talk on safety and advice on how to try and stay vertical was essential.

We were fortunate however that on the day the cold sea was relatively calm; the conditions almost perfect.

We were out on the sea for an hour and a half. Our small group included our five double kayaks plus a solo one with the instructor. There was also a safety dingy hovering not too far away.

We went a good distance from the shore then moved along the coast for about half an hour before turning to return to the starting point.

I was just thinking what a brilliant experience this was, when someone screamed out “there’s a whale”. Sure enough a bit further out at sea was a whale, blowing and seemingly moving towards us. It didn’t come too close (perhaps fortunately) and soon we lost sight.

How good was that? I thought. But then, to my amazement we were suddenly surrounded by dolphins. They swam between us several times, very fast with a bit of a splash as they came out of the water but to my recollection hardly disturbing the movement of our kayaks. One came from behind close enough for me to touch, but too fast for me even to think about it.

We tried to follow them for a while but they were gone. Their brief “hello” was an experience I will never forget.

I regretted not taking Ben’s GoPro waterproof camera on this adventure as I may have been able to record the moment, although another guest took theirs but in the excitement of the moment didn’t think to use it. I suspect I would have been the same.

We sailed away that evening, our final day in Chile, making our way to “Ushuaia”, in Argentina, a journey that will take us around the notorious “Cape Horn”. Then on Wednesday evening we will commence our voyage down to Antarctica.