Delayed at Sea

We sailed into the final channel that takes ships to Puerto Natales. We planned to debark at 3 PM, but from out on the mountains sustained winds of 40 miles an hour stopped the ship dead in its watery tracks. I stood at the bow and the gusts took my breath away, rocking me right and left. There was no rain, only the invisible and unrelenting hand of the wind. Great gray clouds swirled around the bay between bright patches a blue light.

We were no more than 2 miles from shore, but it may as well have been hundred miles. I heard the thunderous clank of the anchor chain as it crashed into the sea. The winds were not going to abate for hours and so the rest of the day and night we would remain, the gargantuan metal anchor holding the ship tight as it twisted south and north like a toy.

It was a reminder that we are not in charge, that mother nature still has a few tricks up her hoary sleeves. Nearly all Navimaggers liked remaining on board.

“It’s not like we aren’t taken care of,” said Jerome, the Frenchman who worked at Federal Express in Lyon. “We have a bed and food!”

Most people seemed to see the delay as a kind of snow day. An unexpected break over which we had no control. So they continued to do what they did best while the big ship twisted in the wind: talking, contemplating, reading, soaking up the remarkable environment that surrounded us, devoid of cell phones and 21st century distractions.

At sunset the horizon caught fire. The view was so spectacular that I almost missed the perfect full moon rising directly behind me. I heard the ship’s lanyards crack in the whipping wind and gazed at the lights of Puerto Natales blinking in the twilight, and then crawled back inside for one more Navimag sleep.

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