At breakfast there were more people. The sea had gotten much calmer during the night and we were told that the worst was over and that there would only be one more rough spot around 2:00 pm. We all though we would be in good shape. No announcements indicating that we should take sea sickness pills, just a little rough weather ahead. Nothing to worry about. Well, the weather forecasts are never really good or correct most of the time. As predicted the sea got rough around 2:00 pm, but it got worse and worse by the minute. Many more people got sea sick since they had not taken pills and so by dinner time there were only very few people present to enjoy "Spaghetti Bolognese" of all dishes. At around 9:00 pm things really started to get better and we were all in a good mood that we made it through the storm. I was on deck taking photos when I suddently had the feeling that the ship was making a 360 degrees turn. What was going on?
Finally there was an announcement that we have been ordered by the Chilean navy to turn around and participate in a rescue operation. A small cargo ship was in trouble and sent a distress signal. Back to the choppy sea .... around 11:00 pm we reached the site of the rescue operation. More and more information came through. The cargo ship had actually keeled over with 10 sailors aboard and they were feared to be dead. The sea was pretty rough and I could not believe what I saw when I watched the other ships helping with the search. How could they be on the open ocean with small boats like that. I decided not to post any pictures of what happened. I watched the search for a long time, small boats roaming around our ship in search for survivors, life rafts of the vessel itself. I went to bed around 1:30 am, by that time there was very little hope to find survivors ......
During the night I did not have the feeling that we were moving .... the next morning I got up at 7:00 am to see what was going on. We were still on the same spot as during the night. In the early hours around 6:00 am the vessel was found, an empty life raft, 2 bodies and one survivor. The other 7 sailors were still missing. We were ordered to secure the area until a navy vessel would arrive. Above you see the cargo boat, it has no keel and was in rough sees on the open ocean .... how could they do that. Unfortunately the paid the highest price possible for their mistake. I really put a stopper to our vacation mood and brought us back to the real, harsh reality of this region.
Around 12:00 noon we were allowed to leave the area and started our final approach to Puerto Montt. The sea was now calm as if nothing ever had happened.
Around 11:00 pm we arrived in Puerto Montt and stayed on board for one more night.
The harbor of Puerto Montt during in the morning. It was time to say good bye to all the people I have met during these 5 days.
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