Bottom of the World

Here are a few pictures that should have been in Blog 3.  The first is of sheep shearing at Olga Teresa, then Betty before she dried out for dinner after glacier watching, and then a shot of Betty's favorite dessert.

I think I have solved my internet issues.  It seems that the signal in our stateroom is considerably weaker than on other places on the ship.  Perhaps it's because we live with some other peons down on Deck 7.

After an all day sail we reached Cape Horn early Sunday evening.  Normally the weather is terrible and the seas next to impossible.  For some strange reason the seas were calm and we got a good view of the rock.  Actually there is nothing at Cape Horn other than a big rock as well as one lonely lighthouse keeper, with his wife and two children.

 

After Cape HORN we sailed overnight to Ushuaia (most southernly city in the world) where  we took a catamaran for a sail down the Beagle Channel.

There we saw sea lions, penguins, the occasional tail of a humpback whale, and lots of birds including the infamous albatross.  The tour was scheduled for 4 hours but took 6.  We didn't get back until 3:00.  We were starving and the last restaurant closed at 2:00.  We were greatly surprised when we were told that the buffet had remained open for stragglers such as us.

Despite it having a land mass equivalent to the State of Connecticut the Falklands have only a population of 3800.  The majority live in Port Stanley with only 400 living in camp (the countryside).  The land is barren with no trees but there are mountains (where most of the 1982 battles occurred) in the far distance.  Most of the tourists come to see penguins, but as it would have taken us hours on a bus, we decided to pass.  Thus, the only sights available

to us were shipwrecks and monuments.

The houses in Stanley all have metal roofs.  Shingles cannot withstand the high winds.  Because the ocean temperature never reaches higher than 8 degrees, the wind is very cold.

The people of the Falklands revere Margaret Thatcher and I think one would have to be very cautious in suggesting she were other than a near god.

 

I mentioned my homicide detective buddy in an earlier blog.  He is very competitive and takes part in every silly game that happens on seadays.  He currently is doing well in collecting points for some sort of prize.  He weakness however, is in putting.  Today, I stood in for him in the putting contest and was able to add to his point count.

                                        Chilean Fjords

Tuesday (Feb 21st) did not have good weather.  Nonetheless, a catamaran picked us up from our anchored ship and we sailed for an hour in heavy rain to Laguna San Rafael where we stopped at the San Valentino Glacier. 

We went out on the deck and stood in the rain for about 20 minutes in awe of the beautiful blue ice floes that were breaking off the glacier.  As you can see Betty was dry by the time we went to dinner.

After another day of sailing in the fjords we stopped on Thursday by the huge Amalia Glacier in the Sarmiento Channel.  This had not been a scheduled stop but we thank the Captain for this little extra. 

On the return we sailed by a shipwreck from 1969.  Apparently the American Captain said to his crew, as he passed some dangerous waters: "we're alright".  Unfortunately, what they heard was "turn right" and that was the end of that ship.

Friday was a great day.  We docked in Punta Arenas, a city of over 100,000.  Punta Arenas is extremely isolated and the next town/city is a 32-hour bus ride away.  From Punta Arenas we had a tour across the pampas (prairie) to visit Estancia (ranch) Olga Teresa.  This ranch has 7,000 acres, 3,000 sheep, 1,000 cattle and 6 working dogs.  We had a demonstration of sheep herding, a demonstration of sheep shearing, and then a lovely lamb bar-b-que.

Each evening (in addition to chocolates on our pillows) we receive a 4-page "newspaper" which summarizes news stories from Canada.  On Wednesday we were pleasantly surprised to find an article on our son Matthew.

Our very first cruise was in 2008 when we travelled around the bottom of South America on a Celebrity ship (from Bueno Aires to Valparaiso).  We thought that this trip would be essentially a repeat, but to our surprise, almost none of our stops are in the same places.  This is neither good nor bad as we are seeing some very interesting places that we didn't see before, but are not seeing places that we fondly remember.  We have friends who will be taking this journey on an Oceania ship next winter.  I am now most interested in examining their specific itinerary.

                                                            Regent Voyager 

On route to boarding our ship in San Antonio we visited the city of Valparaiso.  Valparaiso (Paradise Valley) is a very hilly town but I managed to climb many stairs to the upper level prior to returning via the antique funicular. 

Once we had checked in to our ship a beautiful orchid as well as a bottle of Champagne (the French stuff) awaited us in our stateroom.  In the evening we dined at Prime 7 (steakhouse) where we were served wine in cut-crystal glasses

 

We are meeting lots of interesting people (mostly Americans).  We lunched with a retired military type who noted that he and I were similar in age to Biden.  He wanted to know if I felt that I could deal with that kind of responsibility at my age.  He was a life-long Republican until switching once Trump became President.  He noted that only after he knew that we were Canadians did he feel safe to ask a political question.  He then told a story about biking in Nova Scotia many, many years ago.  He fell and smashed his hip.  However, his commanding officer refused to allow him to have surgery in N.S.  Instead, a hospital plane flew from Vietnam to Greenwood in order for him to be evacuated.

Saturday night was “formal” night and we were invited by a New York heart surgeon and his wife to join them for dinner.  He was born in India and did his training there.  I asked him if it was difficult getting accredited in NY.  Very easy, he responded, just two easy tests.  Fortunately, he didn’t want to practice in Nova Scotia. 

On Sunday we had an unexciting tour of two lakeside towns (Puerto Varas and Frutillar). 

Then at 6:00 p.m. everyone was asked to take a wine glass and leave our rooms.  This was a “block party” and we spent a fun half hour getting to know our neighbours up and down the corridor.  We then had a leisurely dinner in Sett Mari (Italian restaurant).  In fact, we went through so many courses that at the end of the meal it was too late to attend the evening show (a comedian). 

Monday we drove through a relatively isolated section of Patagonia.

This area was not settled until 1921 and now is primarily an area of salmon farming. Scenery was very nice and we stopped for a short walk along the Rio Simpson.

Although we had missed lunch we made it back to the ship in time for high tea.