by Allan Taylor

Created on: April 07, 2010   Last Updated: June 04, 2011

One of the many exciting travel experiences in Chile’s southern region is the frequent voyage by ship,  or  “transbordador”,  as they are called locally, or car ferry elsewhere in the world.

This is due to the mountainous terrain of  southern Chile.   The numerous fiords  and sounds  penetrate far into the hinterland thus interrupting the normal construction of highways .  Also, inhabited offshore islands are separated from the mainland by shallow straits of sea water, but too distant for bridge building.

To overcome this transportation  difficulty  the Chileans have perfected the “transbordador”, or car ferry,  to bridge the gap.   These ships come in small to large size up to 125 meters long.   The smaller ones can load and exit vehicles from either end.    They carry  cars,  buses,  trucks ladden with containers, and other cargo.  The large tourist  ferries have sitting rooms and snack bars for the passengers with bunks and cabins available on long voyages. 

The smaller  car ferries often use a very simple  “terminal”  consisting of a sloping concrete ramp  going into the sea from a  suitable pebbly beach,  much the same  as where you would launch the family fishing boat.  Such an inexpensive  terminal  means that  they are readily constructed on  the numerous inhabited islands found throughout fiordland  thus allowing  easy input of supplies and output of  fish  and farm produce.

Geologically speaking the fiordland topography has come about quite recently during the last million or so years.   During this period  of  several ice ages  huge glaciers carved deep channels from the high Andean ice plateaus down to the Pacific Ocean.  The glaciers extended onto the sea and icebergs drifted off,  much the same as  what occurs around  Antarctica today.  We are now in a warm interglacial period which began only 12,000 years ago.   Much of the ice cover has now melted and the glaciers have retreated; most are still doing so.    Worldwide this has caused a rise in sea level of about 130 meters  thus producing many offshore islands locally.    The deep glacial channels became flooded with sea water  resulting in fiords, 

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