The ferry ride has been great. The accommodation, catering and facilities are not worth the high fare charged but the experience more than compensated. The first and third days were on flat seas through the fjords but the second day was in the open ocean with high winds and some enormous swells (for the size of the ferry) which resulted in some pretty good birding.

While still sailing through the fjords and before the sea turned rough we picked up our first Flightless Steamer-Ducks. Once we hit the open ocean in the afternoon we started picking up the pelagic birds. Among the many Black-browed Albatrosses we also picked up many Grey-headed, one Wandering, a single Northern Royal and more than ten Southern Royal Albatrosses. Also present were numerous Chilean Skuas, Southern Giant-Petrels, Sooty Shearwaters and White-chinned Petrels with a flock of Storm-Petrels, probably Wilson's based on appearance and location. We saw a number of large rafts of birds, three of which were mixed of Albatrosses, mostly Black-browed with a few Grey-Headed, as well as a number of rafts of White-chinned Petrels. The Grey-headed and Royal Albatrosses were new birds for us and the good views we had made our day.

While we had seen quite a few whales blowing on the second day it was too rough to pick anything out but on the morning of the third day we got good views of a pair of Hump-backed Whales passing close to the boat. The sea was also full of jellyfish and lots of Sealions that morning. The afternoon was quite calm and balmy with many of the passengers lounging on the front desk that had been lashed by the wind and the waves only the day before.

We didn't get much sleep last night because the ferry docked at about two in the morning and the crew immediately started releasing the chains that held the trucks and trailers in place, making one helluva racket in the process.

We were on the bicycles and out of the port some time before nine this morning and made our way towards Ruta 5, the main highway northwards to Santiago. We chose this road knowing that it would be busy and boring, which it was, but also knowing that it had a good shoulder and we could bypass Puerto Montt on the simplest and fastest way to get to Puerto Varas. We picked the first hostel as we came into Puerto Varas and found a bicycle shop a few blocks away where I replaced the chains I had fitted only a few days before. Mine was making a terrible noise and I wanted to have peace of mind.

I have changed the title of this journal to reflect that we will now be going onto other places in Chile and Argentina outside of Patagonia. We will start by moving up through Chile's lake district and see where it leads us.