During the morning of this Tuesday, December 26, the ARC scientific ship “Simón Bolívar”, belonging to the National Navy of the Republic of Colombia, docked at Molo de Abrigo, in Valparaíso. On the occasion, the Unit commanded by Captain Jahir Robledo, was received by the Ambassador of Colombia in Chile, René Correa, and by the Commander in Chief of the First Naval Zone, Rear Admiral Roberto Zegers.
After twelve days of navigation since its departure from the port of Buenaventura (Colombia), the ship, which has a crew of 98 people, among whom are 16 Colombian scientists and three scientists from Turkey and Ecuador; She will remain in Valparaíso for four days so that the personnel can carry out training with the Chilean Navy.
This visit is part of the Tenth Antarctic Expedition of Colombia, they will sail for four months to carry out 11 research projects related to oceanographic variables, the behavior of sea level and climate change.
In this regard, the Second Commander of the ARC “Simón Bolívar”, Captain Carlos Torres, indicated that “this is the first time the ship has come (…) thanks to the support and ties of friendship that exist between the Navy from Colombia and Chile, the Chilean Navy has offered us its different training: the first of them is for the entire crew that carries out operations on the steering bridge, who perform navigation watch in the Patagonian channels and obviously the vast experience that the Beloved of Chile has in Antarctica; in addition to knowledge in the art of engineering.”
For his part, the Deputy Director of the Maritime Instruction and Training Center (CIMAR), Litoral Litoral Captain (LT) Daniel Sarzosa pointed out that “in the framework of cooperation that we have between the Chilean and Colombian Navy, in the CIMAR we are going to carry out navigation training, simulating the transit that the ship is going to make from our country to Antarctica, complying with current international agreements, mainly oriented towards safe navigation and that, through the use of our simulators, they can have a virtual reality with the scenarios of Nelson Strait and Fildes Bay, which is where they are going to sail,” he stated.