Quake Tierra en Chile (Earth Quake)

It seems that ever since we left Montevideo, Uruguay, we are in another world. The weather and the seas have not been cooperating for travelers to South America. Luckily we have been this way before and have already had the opportunity to see the beauty of the Patagonia under very different conditions. The wind and the rain have put a serious damper on much of our South Argentina visit so far. We will soldier on!

The Captain of the Sunset Seas made a good decision for safety purposes to bypass the next port of call Puerto Madryn. It would have been necessary for us to travel at too high a speed for the height of the seas for the safety of the passengers. We will miss seeing the penguins and sea elephants in Puerto Madryn. We have had one brief period of calm seas and clear sky’s on the way south.

We hear early Saturday morning about the 8.8 earthquake that has occurred in the middle of the night near Concepcion, Chile. Although I am not sure of any details, it will have a major impact on our trip. We have CNN International News with a live broadcast on the ship and it has captured everyone’s attention. We have several ports of call on the schedule including Puerto Montt and Valpariso over the next several days. We will have to wait to see what will happen

At the moment we are in Punta Arenas, a charming old city in the Tierra del Fuego region of Chile. This city is on the Straits of Magellan and is more or less immune to the potential tsunami caused by the earthquake. We arrived in port a day ahead of schedule due to bypassing Puerto Madryn in Argentina. We have noticed a large number of young men in military uniforms in the city. Evidently, the National Guard has been activated to assist the government with any need that may develop here in the southern most city of Chile.

We are drinking a local beer, Austral, in a local pub and watching live local TV broadcast of the earthquake aftereffects. The TV footage shows that there has been extensive use of rebar in the construction allowing most affected people to survive despite the severity of the quake.