Puerto Eden

74°24'39"W
49°7'53"S
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Puerto Eden was the first of two touristic stops on our third day on the Navimag.

We had woken up that morning early enough to have breakfast and enjoy the scenery. We were back in the channels again, after spending the night crossing the open sea - it wasn't a rough crossing, so we had slept well.

Lunch was served early, accompanied by announcements that it would end sooner as result, and would people please remember to take their dishes and trays back to the kitchen... Shortly thereafter we arrived in Puerto Eden.

There is no place in the tiny Puerto Eden for a ship the size of ours, the Evangelistas, to actually dock. But as soon as we got close about half a dozen little yellow and red open wood motorboats converged on the ship and clustered around the stern. These we then boarded, one at a time, and were ferried to land.

We were admonished that we had "one hour, or one week" to check the place out, and then we were turned loose. I doubt they actually would have left us behind, but we didn't want to find out, so we kept up a brisk pace as we explored, even running at times along the wooden boardwalks that criss-crossed the little natural park behind the village, stopping only to point our camera at things or admire gigantic bumble-bees. Lots of fun!

The village was much more interesting than the park, so our pace slowed when we reentered civilization, such as it was. Also, we didn't want to crash into any fellow tourists, of which there seemed far too many for this tiny place.

The beaches around town were littered with resting or retired fishing vessels, quite cleverly named. We saw a beached Titanic and a decrepit Rambo, but Captain Christ seemed in good shape. We saw fishing nets and workshops, a church, old houses and new... it was a pretty little place.

We saw signs of Internet access at the local library, and there was a call shop as well - but everything was closed. I think we had arrived during siesta.

Some passengers spent their time in the local police office, presumably seeking information about the quake. We decided not to worry about getting word home, assuming our families, who knew our itinerary, wouldn't be too worried and could wait until the next day to hear from us...

In hindsight, that may have been a miscalculation, but the quake didn't seem very real to us at the time.