We did not know but we are glad we are here in time. The poor people who did not extend their days before the cruise have been in transit almost 24 hours. We are glad that we have shaken the jet lag.
Everything is exciting now. We opt out of their walking tour
to visit the Casa Rosada or "pink house" which is much like our White house.
Then we catch some more time in Recoleta Cemetery and again it rains.
If Buenos Aires ever needs rain, all they need to do is get us to go to
Recoleta. I have trouble sleeping because I am so excited.
The flight goes smoothly. Much more smoothly than we could have dreamed.
We don't even stop in Patagonia on the other side of the Straights of Magellan
(they told us that we would). That makes the flight shorter.
Our hotel is lovely and we get settled then head down the hill to the town
of Ushuaia where eat a garlic crab. Ushuaia water is safe and so
are all of its fruits and vegetables. We get to bed but again sleep
is not as easy as it might be because of excitement. Tomorrow we
will be on our way!
It is very beautiful here, where the Andes meet the sea. Small amounts
of snow on glaciers are still on the mountains despite the late summer
time frame. We take a trip through the Tierra del Fuego National
Park. It is so pretty and it is a perfect sunny day with only a few
high clouds and a light breeze.
We take
many pictures but we are only holding still waiting to board the ship which
I saw sneak into port at about 5:10AM. It was barely light and the
bay was like glass. The Akademic Ioffe was the only ship moving and
her wake left a huge V shape behind the boat. We had been warned
that it would like a Canoe from our rooms so far up toward the glacier
but it was more like a bottle cap. No matter. I was in love
with it.
Finally we were able to walk down the pier to see her. In the
mean time, a Norwegian Cruise ship had also docked. Our ship was
dwarfed by comparison but I would not have traded.
Eventually, we make it to the ship. There is another briefing and we shove off at 6 pm. We stand atop the lookout deck above the bridge and watch the Marine Expeditions on the dock rep waving her sweater wildly. Bon Voyage!
The ship's horn sounds three ear splitting times and the dock begins
to recede. We are moving! Something out of a postcard: the
little town of Ushuaia and the ships further and further away. We
turn and see 10,000 seagulls having their dinner on the bay. The
little dashed lines in the water as they run across it to take off are
great.
We put away our things. I don't want to be beaned by baggage in the middle of the night. Our cabin will seem bigger if everything is stowed.
At last we get dinner and a lifeboat drill (which only lasts a few minutes). We watch the Pilot (they have a special guy for the trip through the Beagle channel) get off the ship onto a tug boat and we wave to him.
Soon we will be in the Drake Passage. No other words strike fear into the hearts of Antarctic visitors like those words. No one is looking forward to this part of our journey. We will be there a little longer because we have received the happy news that we are to attempt the circle. We are going to try to cross the Antarctic Circle!
We settle back into our cabins and I am writing here at my desk.
My window is open and lovely cool air wafts in. I can hear the sea
as our ship makes her way. What a lovely feeling. We are mostly
out into the Drake Passage now and the wind has been low. I can feel
the ship moving but only slightly. I will try to sleep now.
I will have to close my window because I do not wish to wakeup by having
cold sea water douse me. Breakfast is to be at 8AM so we will be
up at 7 again. I hope Chelsea gets some time to sleep.
We wake up to the rolling and pitching of the ship again.
This may be our first morning at sea but I, for one, can not sleep in a
moving bed very well. Wade and Chelsea slept better. I shower
and dress Chelsea. She takes her Antivert and we head to breakfast.
While we are standing in the dining room, Chelsea suddenly gets sick.
We knew about Wade but I didn't expect Chelsea to have problems (in retrospect,
it may have just been taking the Antivert on an empty stomach and leaping
out of bed).
Once we get her back in bed, we try to get her Antivert back into her system. I spend my day bringing small meals back to the cabins and fetching what I believe to be Composine from a Russian Doctor with the help of a translator.
Although this is light for the Drake Passage, Wade and Chelsea are not the only ones who are down. By the attendance at the first lecture of the day, I would guess two thirds of the people had a bad start to their day. Gradually more and more show up for meals until I would guess that only about a quarter of the people skipped dinner.
We spot a few albatross (they are, I would guess, bloody albatross flavor). The lecturer talks about a penguin that climbed up on him while he laid down and a 300-400 pound baby elephant seal that tried to do it too.
I feel fine. I took seasick medicine just to be sure but so far
I only had a few queasy minutes up on the bridge.
This was put together by Wade Guthrie