The main scenery for our day of scenic cruising on the Star Princess was not the Chilean fjords and fjord-like channels we’d spent much of the day in but was instead the Amalia Glacier, a glacier that originates in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and which has seen a dramatic retreat of over 7 kilometres since the middle of the last century.
It would have been nice to see the glacier under clearer skies but this wasn’t to be with us instead experiencing the shipboard view of the impressive work of nature under low grey clouds and persistent drizzle. This made for very challenging photo conditions; my telephoto lens in particular struggled with light range and colour balance, persistently adding far too much purple into the shot that had to be removed almost completely in post-processing.
We’d made our way onto the promenade deck rather than seeing what could be seen from our balcony simply because we didn’t know which side of the ship would have the best view. As it was it didn’t really matter as the Star Princess moved into position alongside the glacier then proceeded to rotate on the spot with its thrusters several times ensuring that no matter where anyone was on the ship they would get a decent view.
The Amalia Glacier was the second glacier we’d seen, that first one being the Kjenndal Glacier in Norway. As with the fjords we think that the Norwegian experience was more impressive due to proximity but we’re still incredibly glad we got to see this Chilean glacier and surrounding landscapes too as just how many people can say they’ve seen one, let alone two in different hemispheres of the planet? With the worsening impact from climate change seeing this glacier before it retreated completely out of view from a vessel like the Star Princess was also something worth doing.