Atacama to Paine Day 8

Today we took a bus and ferry journey to Chiloe Island. The bus trip was relatively short about 40 minutes before we got on a small vehicle ferry to cross to the island. Just as we driving onto the ferry we saw a large ringed kingfisher catching a small fish. It was a great start to the day.



The crossing was about 30 minutes and during it we saw dolphins, seals and loads of sea birds. We then drove to a small town on the island to get an understanding of how the local people live. It is strange to see the German style wooden houses, which are painted in lovely colours.



The locals make a living from fishing, sea weed collection and from growing potatoes. The island is very large so we could only get to see part of it, but the countryside was very green and smiliar to English rolling landscape.



We headed to a beach where we took a boat ride to see the local Magellanic and Humboldt penguins. This is as far north that these penguins come to breed and the surrounding rocks were covered in adults and juveniles. Joining them were several types of cormorant, turkey vultures, kelp geese, pelicans and other sea birds.



As we made our way around the colonies we were joined by several sea otters. These were hunting in the kelp and came to the surface to lie on their backs and feed themselves! It was a lovely sight and was certainly the highlight of the day.




We then had lunch, overlooking the beach and then headed back for the return journey. On the ferry back there was a large group of seals playing and thousands of seabirds feeding on the surface. The temperature had dropped quite bit by then, a sign of things to come. Tomorrow we fly as far south as is possible - to Punta Arenas, our cold weather gear will definitely make an appearance!