Diane

Our last stop was to Isla Magdalena hoping to see the Magellanic penguin. The entire island is the Monumento Natural Los Penguins. It’s the time of the year that they are migrating off the island. We were very happy to see them on shore as we arrived to the Island when we got there just as the sun was rising. Once on the island, we followed the official path and watched the penguins wandering around baying and disappearing into their burrows.

Many cormorants were nesting on the island cliffs. The cormorants are black and white just like the penguins so it’s hard to tell them apart from a distance. One clear indicator is if it’s a black and white animal flying it’s a cormorant. If the animal is not flying, it may be either.

We had breakfast after the excursion and then had time to pack before we disembarked about noon. It was really nice to have the meal and extra time.

After disembarking, we took a taxi to the airport where we rented a car to drive up to Puerto Natales where we will spend two nights and visit Torres del Paine National Park. We stopped many times along the way to photograph animals(Guanaco, Andean condor, Chilean Flamingos, Rhea, Magellan goose, and more) in the fields along the road. We enjoyed the many rainbows too. It was about 250 kilometers and we took about 4 hours.

We had a nice room in Puerto Natales and went out for pizza for dinner. I picked the bacon and fried egg pizza as it seemed to be the closest to pepperoni.

Today we rode in the zodiac to see the Condor glacier. It was a nice ride but it gets chilly on the zodiac even when it’s sunny.

We walked around on shore to see the Águila glacier. When we first got on shore we walked with a group but after about 30 minutes, everyone got to walk around by ourselves which was pretty fun. The forest near the glacier was full of plant life and there were birds on the shore to enjoy.

We have been enjoying the delicious food on board. For dinner we have a starter, a soup, a main dish and a dessert. Frequently the starter and/or soup includes some sort of fish/shellfish which I usually give to Tibor. Tibor especially likes the lamb and sea food.

Today was a day of glaciers. Our first glacier was Pia glacier (we visited it on the first leg too). This time we both opted for the coast excursion so we could spend the entire time watching the glacier hoping to see calving. We did see some small calving and the weather was great. I sat on my stuff sack and was very comfortable. The glacier made lots of noise and clearly bits and pieces were moving around but the only ones we saw moving were pretty small.

For our second glacier, no one went ashore and we all went on zodiacs to cruise up to and view the Porter glacier. On the way back we were so excited to see two Magellanic penguins swimming in the water. A dolphin was swimming and playing around the ship and zodiacs too.

We went to Cape Horn today and were fortunate that the weather, wind and seas were ok for a landing. They do not decide if we can go on an excursion until we are at the site to see the actual sea/ocean/weather conditions. Then they put a zodiac in the water and the crew goes out as well to test the conditions on the ground. The conditions were just barely ok for the excursion- wind was up to 60 knots- and the crew said “be prepared to return quickly, but we can go”.

We were up in the lounge at 7am all ready to get on(actually got on about 7:30) the zodiac for a wavy, windy and slightly wet ride to shore. There is very small beach full of rocks but it was only a few steps to the stairs. After about 100 stairs we were on the land of Cape Horn. Yep, it was windy and drizzly- as is said to be “the typical Patagonia weather.” Besides drizzles we had some snow and hail flurries. The path to the albatross sculpture was closed because it was too windy. It was a surprise to see how much vegetation was on the island in spite of the exposure and weather.

I took my GoPro camera to Cape Horn so I could take some pictures on the way back to the ship. Its battery was dead when I tried to use it but when I went to remove the old battery the pull tab came off. By judicious shaking I was able to get the old battery out and then put the new on in, just in time for our return journey to the ship.

We spent a little time (maybe an hour) at Cape Horn before heading back to the ship for breakfast. I did like the clear view of the stairs and lighthouse on Cape Horn just as we got back to the ship. Shortly after we got back on the ship the snow flurries obscured Cape Horn for about 10 minutes and then it cleared up.

We saw many humpback whales as we were heading to our next stop.

Our second excursion of the day was to Wulaia Bay. This time Tibor went on the lookout excursion hoping to be able to see whales in the bay but they weren’t there. I took the coast excursion again. It’s a beautiful area and we both got to walk a little in the forest. On the coast excursion, there was a building that was converted from a radio control center to a museum. The museum had some great murals with the history of the area. It was fascinating reading a little more about the many original explorers of the area. The one thing that was distressing was that one early explorer took 4 natives back home to England to be exhibited as savages in a zoo- as many as 100 people a day came to look at them. Apparently he wasn’t the only explorer that took natives away from their home land.

Today is the end of the first leg of our cruise- we went from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia and will go from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas for the second leg. It is almost the same route but not quite. We go thru the same channel where we saw lots of whales and fur seals and I sure hope we get to see them again. The stop to see penguins on the first leg was changed because the penguins had already migrated away. This leg we plan to stop at Isla Magdalena to see Magellanic Penguins. I took an excursion to that island before the first leg and saw many penguins. I hope they are still there and we stop.

We stopped near Ushuaia and the Argentina immigration officials boarded the ship to complete the customs formalities. We arrive at the pier about midnight.

Tibor left the ship to walk around the hills outside Ushuaia while I stayed on board to organize photos. After a nice lunch on board I left the ship and walked around town for an hour or so. Once it started snowing I headed back to the ship. I had to bypass the sign & chain that said boarding wasn’t until 18:00 but they let me on and were happy to see me.

The new passengers arrived on-board about 6pm, we have the welcome toast at 7pm, we depart at 7:45pm and have dinner at 8:15pm.

We really enjoyed our table mates on the first leg. There were 2 couples and both couples were from the UK.

We were hoping to walk on Cape Horn but the windy was too gusty and it wasn’t safe to land- it gusted up to 100 Km/hour. We did go out on deck to feel the ‘real’ Cape Horn weather. At one point I was going to go up to the 5th deck but a staff member said not a good idea because of the wind.

We ‘drove’ around in circles next to Cape Horn for about 45 minutes and then we headed off to our next stop at Wulaia Bay.

Tibor picked the ‘high physical demand’ excursion and hiked/walked up to the summit to get some great views of the bay. I took the easy forest/coast excursion and saw a number of different birds- Flightless Steamer Ducks, Fire-eyed Diucon, Albatross, Petrels, Andean Condor, South American tern, Magellanic Snipe, and more.

At Wulaia Bay, we walked around the area and visited the old abandoned Radio Station building. The area once held farms and the cows, pigs, horses were released when the farms were abandoned. Don’t know what happened to the horses but the cows and pigs are now wild. It was particularly odd to see cow pies (poop) on the trail. Didn’t actually see any cows or pigs. The area also has a number of dead trees from the invasive beavers.

At the Radio station is a barrel. This barrel was a replica of the barrel used by the sailors in the area. They would write letters and leave them in the barrel, the next sailor would search thru the barrel to find a letter that was going the same direction and would deliver it. We could leave and take one post card if we wanted. I left a post card and picked one up and will deliver it to a town near our home.

When we got back to the pier they had a hot chocolate station and were giving out hot chocolate (with or without whisky). That was a nice, warming touch.

On the way to Ushuaia, in the Beagle channel we saw so many whales, fur seals and birds it was amazing. It was a bit late in the day so all my pictures were blurry and dark but it was incredible to see.

At the end of the cruise, guests are invited to submit pictures they took during the voyage. Most, but not all, of these pictures would be used to create a slideshow that was shown in the lounge. I submitted a couple of pictures and was happy when the crowd went ‘oohh’ when they saw one of my pictures.

It was a long boat ride from Ainsworth Bay to Pia Glacer so we did not have an excursion in the morning and everyone stayed on the ship until after lunch.

We again selected a ‘Low Physical Demand’ excursion but this time it had mud, slope, physical activity and medium educational content since we walked up the slope to a lookout spot. We walked past the glacier and watched a small calving(where a piece of the glacier breaks off) and then walked into the forest. The trail was a bit steep and I thought the rock would be slippery like the granite in Yosemite but the rock wasn’t slippery but the land (mud, lichen, moss) was slippery. I held onto the rope next to the trial until I realized it wasn’t taut and wouldn’t keep me from falling.

When we got back from the walk in the forest, we watched the glacier hoping to see more calving and took the second to last zodiac back to the ship. The last zodiac had the guides.

When you leave the ship you must wear a lifevest, you remove a keychain with your number on it from your lifevest and put it on a hook in a cabinet. When you return you take the number out of the cabinet and put it back onto your lifevest. If the cabinet has no keychains/numbers in it after all the zodiacs return, then the staff knows everyone is on board.

When you get to shore, everyone takes off their lifevest and puts it on the shore. At the end of the excursion, you pick up a random lifevest to wear back to the ship. Some folks try to ‘hide’ their lifevest in order to get the same one when they return but that doesn’t typically work since someone else usually finds and uses it. Then the folks that ‘hid’ their lifevests are upset.

The route to our next stop took us thru Glacier Alley where there are a number of large/named glaciers. We were served food/drink to match the glacier nationality. We had beer and sausage when we went by the Alemania (Germany) glacier, cheese and wine when we went by Francia (France), pizza when we went by Italia (Italy), and Ollenballen when we went by Holanda (Holland).

Today we visited Ainsworth Bay where we went on a forest walk and in the afternoon we visited Gallegos Glacier.

There are screens on the ship that give the daily schedule. They are in multiple languages- English, Spanish, French. Folks are divided into groups for excursions. The excursion groups are also grouped by language.

Each excursion is rated on

• Pace- how fast you’ll walk- the longer the distance the faster the pace as all excursions have the same amount of time ashore
• Mud- how much mud you’ll have to walk thru
• Slope- how steep the slope is
• Physical Activity
• Educational Content- this happens to be inversely proportional to the pace- the faster the pace, the less educational content

The forest excursion we went on was rated ‘low physical demand’ but it had a large educational content. It was so amazing to see the forest with it’s tall green trees, lots of beautiful lichen and mosses with a mountains and glaciers in the background.

We saw a fox just on the beach as we were getting ready for our walk so that was exciting.

We saw the landscape that was changed by the introduced beavers. They have created a whole new eco system with ponds instead of streams.

It was exciting to see our first large glacier of the trip. We heard the cracks from the glacier and saw a couple of smaller calving events. We felt like we were right at the glacier but learned when we came back aboard that we were 2 kilometers away.

As we were leaving, I saw two V-shaped wakes in the water that were moving quite fast. I couldn’t figure out what was making those tracks but found out later they were Flightless Steamer Ducks. These ducks flap their short, stubby wings and paddle with their webbed feet and can get up to 24km/hour as they motor across the surface of the water

Tibor arrived yesterday afternoon. He was super excited about his trip.

This afternoon we will get onto our ship for our cruise- more on that later. There is no WiFi on the ship so it will be a number of days before I continue this blog.

Today I took a tour to “Park of the Strait of Magellan- Fort Bulnes”. I took this tour because the other ones I was interested in were full.

It was an interesting tour with great views but I”m spoiled because I’ve had English speakers on other tours. This time the tour guide only knew Spanish. I’m sure he was a very good guide. He talked the entire hour drive to the park and then talked during the hour and a half walk around the park.

I was bummed because I only understood a few words- vamos (time to go), a la derecha(on the right), cementerio (cemetery- see picture below), aqui (here) and some place names (Punta Arenas, Magellan, America- not sure if it was America, American or South America).

The last stop of the tour was a museum and the guide said to meet back at the bus at trece(13) but I understood tres(3). Since it was only 12:15pm I was surprised to learn we had until 3pm to visit the museum. I watched the other folks on the tour and when they went back to the van so did I. Then I figured out what happened- we were to meet at 13 o’clock e.g. 1pm. Trece and tres sound the same to someone that doesn’t really speak Spanish.

Finally figured out why Fort Bulnes was so important when I purchased a map of the area that had a few paragraphs about tourist spots. Fort Bulnes was the place where Chile made claim to the Patagonia/Strait of Magellan area. It was the settlement which was moved to another location and became the town/city of Punta Arenas. The reason it was moved is because it was very cold and it was difficult to grow food. Even today, it was rainy and windy at Fort Bulnes but nice and mostly sunny in Punta Arenas.

I met TIbor when he came in from his Patagonia hiking trip. He had a great time and hiked/walked over 100 miles!