Into Laguna San Rafael
Most days along the route, the Skorpios would come to a stop, lower nets and fishing boats would dump loads of crab, more fresh oysters, clams, and sea urchins onto the deck. I must have eaten at least two dozen oysters for lunch one day. A dozen raw and a dozen baked with cheese. Unlimited wine, we were happy campers.
Another evening, the Skorpios pulled up to a waterfall, stuck a hose in it and refilled the water tanks on ship. Pure, clear uncontaminated water from a glacier. The scenery became more dramatic the further we went into the fjords and finally, there was Laguna San Rafael with glaciers and ice bergs floating everywhere.


Now it was seriously time to put on the life jackets in preparation for boating in the lagoon, not like our faux pas of before.


El Capitan ordered life boats lowered and off we went for a ride, a very close ride, between the ice bergs. When I compare that trip with zero safety precautions in 1986 to the safety standards on the 2007 Orlova Antarctic cruise we just took, there's no comparison. There is no way that the Orlova zodiacs would ever have gone as close to the ice bergs as we did in our Skorpios life boats. Very dangerous......






