Saturday, January 4, 2025

Puerto Montt, Chile

            Monday, 25 Dec 2023 – We were scheduled to anchor at Puerto Montt at 8:00 AM.  Puerto Montt is a port city in southern Chile with a population of about 246,000, located 656 miles to the south of the Santiago.  Founded in about 1853 during the German colonization of southern Chile, Puerto Montt soon outgrew older neighboring cities due to its strategic position.  The city has recovered from the terrible 1960 Valdivia earthquake, which destroyed much of Puerto Montt and collapsed the port and the train station along with many buildings and houses.  Puerto Montt has gained renown and grown significantly due to the rise of Chile as the second largest salmon producer of the world during the 1990s and 2000s.  However, the Chilean salmon aquaculture crisis of the late 2000s resulted at least temporarily in severe unemployment and exposed weaknesses in the local economy.

At about 8:30 AM, the ship’s captain announced that the sea was much too rough for the ship to tender the passengers ashore, so we would be moving on, and not spending the day at Puerto Montt.  As usual, we went to the Terrace Café for breakfast.  During the afternoon, we passed by beautiful snow-covered mountains and many islands.

Before dinner in the Terrace Café, we danced to the 4 Corners Band in the Horizons.  Several other couples were dancing tonight, including Ed & Alicia.  However, they went to dinner elsewhere, and did not join us for dinner in the Terrace Café.  They served a traditional Christmas dinner tonight, so there was no lobster.  Instead, Sally enjoyed fish and Jesse had a customary turkey dinner.  We had Resieling wine with dinner again.

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