Description

Skorpios II cruises the Chonos Route of Chile’s Fjords; a sea peppered with islands, a land where volcanoes and glaciers sculpt the landscape and the legends of the fjords come true… this is Skorpios territory in the Northern Ice Field… we’d like to show it to you.
Motor Vessel Skorpios II sails from Puerto Montt, the capital of the Province of Llanquihue and of the Chilean Lake Region, founded opposite the Seno of Reloncaví in 1853. We will arrive in Quemchi, a small village on the island of Chiloe and Puerto Aguirre, a remote fishing village on Huichas Island in the Chonos archipelago. Its inhabitants have all the basic equipment of a city, but live in an quiet and peaceful atmosphere provided by their environment. We also anchor in Dalcahue, a small village on central Chiloe named after Dalcas, traditional boats made of three boards used by the Chonos. Our cruise will also include sightings of other coastal villages like Calbuco and Caguache.
The Motor Vessel Skorpios II Chonos Route covers a total of 800 miles while she threads her way through channels and fjords where nature is still practically free from human habitation, taking you to the San Rafael Glacier in the Northern Ice Field.This ice mass is in the midst of Chilean Patagonia, between S. latitude 46º and 47º. It has an approximate area of 4,400 km2, with a length that runs for 100 kilometres from north to south and an approximate width of 40 kilometres from east to west, with a total of 7 glaciers. This enormous ice formation contains the San Rafael Glacier, which is the nearest Sea bound glacier to the Equator; it covers 15 kilometres from Mount San Valentin to placid waters of Lake San Rafael.
We set sail on Motor Vessel Skorpios II every Saturday, returning on Thursdays from October to April, from the Skorpios terminal in the city of Puerto Montt located 1,000 km south of Santiago, which is accessible by air or land. This cruise lasts for 5 nights, covering 800 miles on the route to magical age-old ice formations of the San Rafael Glacier, sailing through spectacular archipelagos, channels, fjords and gulfs and showing you this impressive territory where we can find cities and villages such as Quemchi, Dalcahue and the fishing village of Puerto Aguirre, which gives us a full view of the splendor of nature at her most vigorous, as can best be seen in the Quitralco Fjords, with its hot springs and numerous islands, included on our cruise.
The majestic natural environment of the locations on the Chonos Route has a vigorous flora that surges spontaneously. Wild ferns and wildflowers like the chilco or Magellanic fuchsia, native forests and the compact foliage of coigües and canelos (nothofagus domebyi and drimys winteri) are the most characteristic features of the austral rainforest. This is the best possible scenario for a rich and diverse marine and land fauna visited on Islote Barrientos and Islote Conejos. Seagulls, chucao (scelorchilus rubecula), cormorants, black-necked swans, huala ducks, woodpeckers, magellanic penguins, together with seals, sea leopards and impressive blue whales of the Gulf of Corcovado, are living testimonies of the infinite biodiversity that exists in southern Chile.