Birding in Santiago and Embarking on our Cape to Cape Expedition

This was the first expedition we had ever taken that started in Chile rather than Argentina, which immediately made the whole experience feel a little different.

The expedition package included one night at the Mandarin Oriental Santiago, though we added a second night to give ourselves an extra day in the city before embarkation.

Honestly, it turned out to be a great decision.

Pro tip: If you add an additional night to a booking that is included with a package, make sure that both rooms are in the same category. If its a different category, you will have to check out and then wait around until check-in time to get into your new room.

The weather was hot and sunny, the pool area was excellent, and after long international flights it felt like the perfect place to recover from jet lag for a day or two before heading south again.

It also quickly became obvious that this expedition was going to feel different from our previous trips. The hotel lobby was filled with people carrying Silversea luggage tags, and almost all of them looked dramatically more polished than we did. We had packed practical expedition clothing and camera gear. Oh well. I’m perfectly comfortable being the underdressed person in the room.

At one point we also discovered that AC/DC happened to be staying at the hotel. Huge crowds gathered outside hoping to catch a glimpse of the band. Honestly, it felt even more chaotic than the crowd we once saw outside a restaurant where Liam Gallagher was eating.

Not exactly the atmosphere I expected before a penguin expedition.

Birding Near Santiago, Chile

With a free day available before embarkation, we arranged a half-day birding tour along the Chilean coast.

Our first stop was Viña del Mar to photograph Inca terns. This location never disappoints. A little fog drifted across the coastline during the morning, but the birds still looked fantastic perched along the rocky breakwall. We could also see chicks tucked into nesting crevices between the rocks, which made the stop even better.

We also spotted several Red-legged Cormorants on some nearby rocks.

From there we continued north toward Cachagua Penguin Island to visit the Humboldt Penguin colony. This time we had arranged a boat tour to get closer to the penguins, but unfortunately the swell was too high for boats to safely approach the island. Instead we watched the penguins from shore, though they were barely distinguishable.

The highlight of this stop was an otter weaving through the kelp beds near the shoreline, completely unbothered by the rough conditions.

Embarkation Day Delays

At first, embarkation day seemed remarkably well planned.

For Snow Hill we started with a brutally early 4am wake-up.

We had been assigned to Bus 6, the final transfer group to the airport and the last of three charter flights. So instead of a 4am wake-up like we had for Snow Hill, we weren’t departing for the airport until 2pm.

There was also no schlepping of luggage. We were instructed to leave it outside our room by 6:30am and they would get it to the ship.

We went to the gym and then headed downstairs for breakfast in one of the hotel conference rooms. There were still a lot of extremely well-dressed cruise passengers, though we assumed some of them might belong to another sailing departing around the same time.

Then things started getting strange.

While waiting near checkout we overheard conversations about delays and flight changes. Eventually staff informed us that our departure had been delayed and that we would instead head to another hotel for lunch. On a positive note, most of the very fancy-looking passengers had disappeared, leaving behind a noticeably more expedition-looking crowd.

Around 1:30 our group finally boarded buses and headed to the Ritz-Carlton for lunch. Not the buffet. The actual restaurant. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything for me to eat because one main contained onions and the other was fish. The bread and wine were excellent.

Flying to Puerto Williams

Eventually we headed to the charter terminal, which thankfully operated separately from the main Santiago airport. No giant check-in lines. No dragging luggage through crowded terminals. Everything felt relatively smooth.

At least initially.

By around 4:45 p.m. people started quietly wondering why nobody had communicated an updated departure time. Meanwhile Google informed us that Puerto Williams does not have night landings, which suddenly felt mildly concerning. We finally boarded around 6 p.m. and the flight attendant casually announced: “The pilot thinks we can make it.” Exactly the sort of sentence you want to hear before flying into remote Patagonia late in the evening.

Dinner service followed shortly afterward, though unfortunately my meal turned out to be some kind of onion-heavy stew. I need to do better at carrying an emergency protein bar or something.

Eventually I spotted the lights of Ushuaia glowing on the left side of the aircraft. Puerto Williams sits just across the Beagle Channel on the Chilean side, though the contrast between the two places feels enormous. Ushuaia has more than 80,000 residents. Puerto Williams has only a few thousand.

Around 10 p.m. we finally landed. And then we waited ten minutes for stairs to arrive at the aircraft. And then we waited another 20 minutes for shuttle buses.

Ironically we could already see the ship from the airport, but since the airport sits on a separate island, the transfer still required about a ten-minute drive around the harbor.

Boarding the Silver Wind

The buses dropped us at the end of the pier for a short walk to the ship.

The Silver Wind actually looked smaller than I expected, though I think that mostly came from the lack of surrounding context in Puerto Williams.

Inside, the crew welcomed us with warm towels and drinks, though by that point it felt difficult for anyone to fully enjoy the arrival experience because everybody was simply exhausted.

I was also starving.

By then it was after 11 p.m. and I had not really eaten properly since breakfast aside from bread and wine at lunch. Fortunately the main restaurant remained open, and I ended up having an excellent spinach and asparagus ravioli before finally heading to the cabin.

Meanwhile we learned that one of the earlier charter flights had suffered a mechanical issue and returned to Santiago before eventually diverting to Punta Arenas overnight. Departure for the voyage would now be delayed until the missing passengers arrived the following day.

Not exactly the strongest start to the expedition.

We finally reached our cabin around midnight.

The ship itself felt a little more dated than the newer Quark and Aurora expedition ships we had sailed on previously. Lots of dark wood. Very classic cruise ship aesthetic.

We had booked a standard balcony cabin on Deck 4 but successfully bid a few hundred dollars for a Deck 6 mid-ship upgrade. I would have preferred a lower deck, but wanted to be mid-ship for less movement during all of those sea days.

The expedition gear setup impressed us though. Silversea had provided large dry bag backpacks designed without mesh or velcro to make biosecurity Easier. There were also reusable drink bottles, small card wallets, expedition jackets, rental boots, and zodiac life jackets already hanging in the closet waiting for us.

It had been an incredibly long day. And after all of it, we still were not actually leaving until tomorrow.

Next up –> A Delayed Departure From Puerto Williams