Morning cruise at Puerto Profundo (and we remembered the photos of Chilean dolphins!)

While Friday, January 31st was a day of hiking, Saturday, February 1st would be a jam-packed day with two epic zodiac raft cruises. Today we were on the southwest side of Patagonia where the weather from the Pacific slams into the Andes and fjords. There is no escape from wind and rain, but the adventure and sights are always well worth it. One of these rainy Saturday cruises is at Puerto Profundo.

But first! Upon further review of our photos, we discovered that we actually did capture images of Chilean dolphins a few days earlier as we re-entered the Beagle Channel. This was by far, the most challenging animal to photograph during the trip. Their movements were so fast and extremely difficult to anticipate, especially in a choppy current.

No way this photo is in a "gallery" mode, it gets a nice large window. We think we stared at about 50 shots of empty water before we discovered that we did actually capture a shot of a dolphin!

Here are a couple of the other shots we got:

Got the start of a jump as well

And back into the sea

Back to Puerto Profundo. This morning, sadly we find ourselves on our 2nd to last day at sea. Over the course of this journey, we picked up a lot of experience at rafting through ice and plenty of wind. Today, we would rely on all of that experience as we navigated narrower fjords than we'd seen before in more rain than we had taken on to this point.

Welcome to the rainforest at Puerto Profundo.

The scout boats were out early on Saturday morning to see what wildlife was present in the area. Before long, we were suited up and out on the Zodiac. Enjoy the cruise.

Scoping out the channels in the area, taking in the scenery and rich colors. With so much rain in this region, the plant-life is incredibly lush.

The cruise through each narrow aisle of the archipelago gave us a new angle on the vegetation. Every stop in Patagonia so far gave us a nice surprise and new splashes of color. Puerto Profundo was no exception. We soaked in every moment of cruising this very wild maze of fjords.

Around the base of each small island and rocky coast, you can see a thick coating of mussels. Undoubtedly these were the food stock for sea otter populations in the area. While we heard radio chatter from other rafts that spotted some otters, we weren't so lucky. Maybe next trip to Patagonia 😉.

What a great start to Saturday! We were the first group out and it was time to switch up with the next groups and head on to our afternoon destination. Below is a short glimpse of our ride back to the ship. A little bit of wind, a little bit of chop. A whole lot of beautiful scenery.

And back to the Resolution to ready ourselves for the afternoon adventure.

A great start to the weekend