Today at noon we left through the narrow Channel in Puerto Hoppner. A channel that is 7m wide (the boat is 5m), so its always exciting to go through – and we have to wait for the right tide to do so. We could not have been luckier with the weather in Hoppner – the sun and blue sky came out at times, then clouds would roll in across the mountain tops. It couldn’t have been better. Plus Hoppner has a water fall that is reminiscent of waterfalls in Yosemite! What a great place, plus it was the first time for our intrepid photographer Marcelo to come to Hoppner (thus far he had visited the other places we went) so we were excited to introduce him to a new place.
Its hard to Describe Isla de los Estados. It’s a rain forest, for sure, it has fjords, but also lower lying features. There are an abundance of birds and ducks, and a few seals a sea lions. The landscape is harsh and beautiful all at the same time. Its Magical. Now we start our journey home.
Our first 2 stops for science- the otter camera traps were VERY successful with many videos of otters. The second two, sadly did not capture any otters. One may need to be slightly repositioned, as there was fresh poop. The other did not have signs of poop and I’m less confident of getting a video in the future…. but we shall see! In total we collected 7 poop samples – Ale I think will be very happy!
And now we say goodbye to the Island. Ocean Tramp will return in March! Now we sail across the Straits of LeMaire and back to Peninsula Mitre and onwards towards Ushuaia.
