Thursday 27 January 2011 - Back home

FINAL THOUGHTS

After a long but more comfortable flight than I had been expecting, I arrived home on Tuesday morning, had yesterday off as it was Australia Day (a public holiday), and then returned to work today. Reality hasn’t quite set in yet – it’s going to take some time to get rid of the smile on my face when I think back on this holiday.

If I did it all over again, what would I do differently? Virtually nothing! I loved the contrasts and variety offered on this trip, from the jungles and heat of Iguazu Falls, the bustle and colours of La Boca in BA, the endearing penguins in the Falklands and the pristine white landscape of Antarctica.

There are two cruise options on how you can see Antarctica – expedition ship or ‘drive-by’. My cruise was the ‘drive-by’, meaning we didn’t land in Antarctica but with days of perfect weather I spent endless hours on deck watching as we slowly manoeuvred past icebergs, glaciers, penguins, seals and occasionally whales. I have absolutely no regrets choosing this option as at no time did I feel that I was missing out on something by not stepping ashore, one reason being that I was able to get up close to gentoos, king and Magellan penguins in the Falklands.



King penguin with "frilled shirt"

 

King penguin chick born last season



A Magellan penguin - the butt of my jokes



The penguin on left is protecting  its egg



Another deciding factor was that the price difference between the two options means that the money I saved will fund visits to Namibia and Botswana plus either Rajasthan or the Galapagos and Cuba in the coming year or two – three trips for the price of one! And I want to do a Grand Voyage in the future!

I’ve cruised with Cunard, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Holland America plus a few other lines which are either no longer around or not worth mentioning and I would have to say that my cabin on the Veendam was in the best condition of any I have had – relatively new soft furnishings and no sign of wear and tear anyway. The Veendam's crew were also great - friendly, helpful and responsive.





My cabin - a few days into the cruise

I was in an E class ocean view cabin on Main Deck just near the aft stairs and elevators which made it easy to have quick access to the decks for viewing, moving from the Sky Deck level to the Retreat and down to the Lower Promenade to get the best views and photos. Even through my cabin window at times I was able to take photos of penguins on icebergs at eye level rather than looking down on them from above.

I heard of a couple of people who had issues either with noise or air-conditioning but these were addressed to their satisfaction.

I found the best time to work on the blog on the cruise was early in the morning around 6 am or late in the evening, from 10 pm onwards, when not many others were accessing the internet. I always keep a travel diary so replaced it with this on this trip and only spent an hour at the most, including a quick sort of photos, each day.

Joining my sailing’s roll call on Cruise Critic and meeting other members really added to the enjoyment of the cruise and a group of us went to a tango show in BA the night before the cruise and did some transfers and tours together. To Robyn & Ken, Deb and Audrey, Connie and David, Pat and Jack, Cheryl and Jack, Paula and Glen, Michelle and Paula, and Gisela, many thanks for your company on our tours and cruise! I’m sure some of us will meet up again.

Thanks also to all those who followed my travels and commented - I hope I have given you inspiration to visit this wonderful area if you haven't already been.

All up, an absolutely fabulous time – I couldn’t have asked for better!

Sunday, 23 January 2011 - Valparaiso

SHIP TO SHORE

A very quick and easy disembarkation process this morning saw me off the Veendam and ready to start the long trip home. Our small group called Antarctic Bound who had pre-organised a tour and transfer to Santiago were a little late in starting as Marisu’s luggage had gone missing somewhere in this easy process. Hopefully it will be delivered to her hotel in Santiago.

Our tour involved going through downtown Valparaiso and then up and around some of the many colourful and steep hillsides.



Chilean Naval Offices in downtown Santiago - or Disneyland Railway Station?



A lot of the homes, ranging from little shacks to three storied residences, are brightly coloured, a tradition started when left over paint from ships was used to save money. I was surprised at the number of homes, including the multi-storied ones, which were constructed in corrugated iron. My ancestor who came around the Horn actually worked in Valparaiso for awhile so it was interesting that one of the hills we visited had been where the English colony had lived.



Veendam with Valparaiso in background



We then went along the coast to the neighbouring suburb of Vina Del Mar, a more upmarket area where a lot of cruise ship passengers and inland residents stay. Here at 2.30 pm we stopped for lunch. Most of us wanted something quick and easy but our guide had other plans. Lunch was in a restaurant converted from an Englishman’s faux castle built along the shorefront. Although the food was okay we didn’t get out of there until 4.30 pm – and that was only after a one course lunch!

Although Valparaiso looked poor, apparently it has become very popular to buy a place up in the hills – at around US$500,000! As a lot of the places up there are teetering on the edge of steep hills and it’s an earthquake prone area, I know of a number of other locations I’d pick first. As a keen photographer, though, the bright colours and peeling paint make for great subject matter.

Faux Castle



By this time as it was still nearly two hours to Santiago followed by a short tour, dropping off some at hotels and then the remainder of us at the airport, those of us going to the airport were concerned about getting there for the three hour check-in so rebelled and asked to go directly to the airport.  This turned out fine for some but American Airlines and LAN International (other than their US flights) were pretty strict about the 3 hour check-in time so it meant quite a wait for others.

As the lone Aussie I separated from the others. There was no queue at my check-in counter so I fronted up a little early and then hit a snag. I was on a LAN Chile ticket with a codeshare flight coming across to Buenos Aires with Qantas. LAN changed my flight number to BA to a straight Qantas number – but forgot to reissue the ticket and enter a return flight. At no time had this shown up when I looked at my booking online but with my ticketing I hadn’t been able to check-in online. Suddenly late on a Sunday evening on a full flight I had no ticket or seat! It took over an hour and a half for LAN to work out what went wrong – and then they couldn’t reissue the ticket until they found the person responsible and who was going to have to pay for this ticket! So, after getting to the airport at 6 pm for an international flight at 11.10 pm, I didn’t get a ticket or boarding pass until 9.25 pm. As the flight was full I was given one seat for the Santiago to Auckland sector and then a different seat for the Auckland to Sydney sector.

I’m easily amused (in case you hadn’t already realised) and like people watching so while I was standing at the check-in counter for all this time (and keeping polite and calm) I noticed the Latin lotharios behind the check-in counter of the neighbouring airline. These two guys with too much hair product would leer at most of the women walking past and the smirks they exchanged when a woman in a form fitting top approached one of them for check-in made me want to cringe. I even saw a young male baggage handler wheel his trolley into someone as he craned his head around to get a rear view image of women walking past him!

Finally, with my precious boarding pass in my hand I went through immigration – and got chatted up by the young (and good looking) guy behind the counter. I came away with the impression that it was open season on anyone female under 50 with fitted clothes. It was kind of funny but also very off-putting – and I must say this was the only time in South America had I seen this very obvious behaviour (obviously they have a little more subtlety at other places).

After getting to my gate with not a lot of time to spare I didn’t have much time to wait until my flight was called. I approached with my boarding pass and when it went through the machine I was pulled out of line and told to take my pass, ticket and passport to the counter. What now? The LAN staff member made a note of my passport number, crossed out my seat numbers and moved me up into Business Class! It obviously paid off not making a song and dance about LAN’s stuff up with my ticketing and I could look forward to a much more comfortable flight home in a flat bed seat!



Saturday, 22 January 2011 – Sea Day

PACKING DAY

Our last sea day and also our last full day of the cruise.

It was so nice out on deck now that it’s getting warmer as we head up north that I did quite a few laps on the Lower Promenade Deck. Shorts and t-shirts are becoming popular attire again but most of the deckchairs were empty (the majority are now reserved for Lanai cabin passengers who weren’t taking advantage of the beautiful day).

Being the last day also means packing day, stuffing everything that has been spread across the cabin back into my suitcase and duffle bag. Actually, those who know me well wouldn’t recognise my cabin as I keep everything spotless and nothing left out in the open (very different from my own home!) Fortunately everything fitted in easily as I’ve only bought a couple of books, the leather, the ship’s DVD of our Antarctic cruising, plus my cabin steward, three towels and the two bathrobes.

Speaking of my cabin steward, Suhardi, I went to the Culinary Arts Centre this afternoon, for the first time, to see a towel animal folding demonstration. Every evening I’ve had a different towel animal plus 2 chocolates waiting in my cabin when I’ve returned. At the demonstration, Suhardi was one of the two stewards who got to show off his towel folding talents. Suhardi has been with HAL since 1993 and this was the first time he has done the demo, and although a little nervous he did a great job – so good in fact that I bought a copy of the book and I’m going to make sure I make a towel animal and leave two chocolates on my bed each night when I get home! If I have any problems I’m sure Suhardi will survive the duffle bag trip to Australia.



Suhardi with some of his creations



To some a 17 night cruise might seem a long time but it’s only in the last few days that a group of us have fallen into an easy rhythm of shipboard life, meeting either for Pub Trivia, dinner or after dinner drinks in the Explorers Lounge where we watch over the good chocolates, before moving into the Explorers Café so we can talk without disturbing those listening to the musicians in the previous lounge. Tonight after a disappointing showing in Pub Trivia Robyn, Ken, Deb, Audrey and I had a fabulous dinner in the Pinnacle Grill, especially with the chocolate volcano cake for dessert.

 

Bags out - only the first two are mine




Friday, 21 January 2011 – Puerto Montt

FRUIT OVERBOARD!

Today our CC Antarctic Bound group of 13 were on a tour organised by Paula and Glen with South Excursions. We were picked up at the tender dock and were driven in a very clean and comfortable minivan to Petrohue Falls. These falls are in the shadow of a volcano but there was a lot of cloud cover so we couldn’t actually see the volcano.



Petrohue Falls



The cloud in the background hides the volcano



These kids were 'offroad' but shows the need for good footwear.
This is a narrow concrete path


Two days ago when the Infinity stopped here there was absolutely torrential rain and the passengers were all drenched. Though overcast, we were all dry and able to take photos. The path out to the observation areas is over fairly rough ground, some parts are very smooth but uneven volcanic rock, and I was just about to comment to someone that you really needed good footwear to go out there when I turned and saw a local visitor in stilettos!

Back at Puerto Varas, the City of Roses, on the shores of the lake, we had lunch then visited the small local handicraft market and watched some children perform  local traditional dances.



Showing the German influence along the lakeshore





Detail of the spurs - similar to what the gauchos wear
but a cut-down version for the younger boys



Talk about a tough audience! Just because the clouds didn’t clear and give us a good view of the Osorno volcano, at lunch it was suggested that I be demoted from god to demi-god, from the good weather fairy to the tooth fairy. I tried to explain that I didn’t promise clear skies, only no rain but some people (Ken) weren’t very sympathetic! I’m thinking of hanging up my wings.

The last two days when we’ve gone ashore in Chile we have had to take with us a signed declaration that we are not taking any fruit, meat or other plant or animal products ashore. They are particularly concerned about fruit but I don’t know why. If we could have got our hands on any fruit the last few days it wouldn’t have made it off the ship (although there was a small supply of melon at breakfast today). This morning we had a cursory inspection of our bags at the dock but no-one asked to see our forms.

Returning by tender to the Veendam this afternoon, we saw a vessel going out to the ship stacked with produce boxes on the deck so some of us speculated what they could contain – vegetables, pineapple, cherries – our mouths were watering. Once on the ship I went straight to my cabin and put my watch on the bedside table, looking out the window as I did so. Imagine my horror then when I saw all these boxes floating away in the current. Somehow they had gone overboard!!!



Fruit overboard - taken through a less than spotless cabin window



It took about 10 minutes for the boat, now with the crew with life jackets on, to go out and try to fish them out of the ocean. Unfortunately they moved out of my view as the current pushed them away so I didn’t see what happened next.



Search and rescue!

At dinner we wondered if we would be served briny vegetables because with Chile’s view on plant life coming in, I’m sure they wouldn’t accept the produce back! We still didn’t have a lot of variety but now the dessert menu describes dishes as having ‘a colourful array of fruit’ or ‘a splash of berries’. Who writes this stuff? The ‘colourful array of fruit’ looked suspiciously like SPC’s Two Fruits with a little diced watermelon added.

PS Many thanks for your comments but unfortunately internet connection is too slow for me to do much more than just post and add some photos but I do read them all.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 - Puerto Chacabuco

THE SUBSTITUTE

Often when a ship misses a port you receive a small refund in port taxes and enjoy another day at sea. HAL though has been able to replace our stop at Punta Arenas with a port call at Puerto Chacabuco, further up the Chilean coast near Punta Montt.

As this little port does not offer much in the way of interest, we were advised to join a tour and this is what I did. The five hour tour took us to the Simpson River Reserve, Coyahaique (the regional capital) and a waterfall. We had a 15 minute stop at the Simpson River Reserve – a park about a quarter acre in size (I live on a quarter acre block so I know what I’m talking about!), a drive on to Coyhaique where we visited the local handicrafts market, a stop for snacks which turned out to be quite good as they had FRESH FRUIT, empanadas, kebabs, Pisco Sours (a regional drink of Peru and Chile) and unlimited Chilean wines. A few minutes’ walk from this stop was a waterfall we could photograph if we wanted to. It wasn’t until I returned to the ship and read the description of how the Simpson River Reserve covered 98,844 acres that I realised I might have been short-changed in how much I saw of the reserve.





Elephant Rock from the Simpson River Reserve stop

 
 

In the grounds of our snack stop

  

Virgin Falls

 

I did manage, though, to bag a bargain. In the markets I saw a tanned leather sheep’s hide for US$16 (at home I would have been paying many times more). I make my own travel journals using watercolour paper but haven’t been able to purchase reasonably priced leather for the covers – not the usual tourist purchase but I’m a happy camper. Now I just have to get it through Australian customs.

Returning to the ship by tender, I learnt that other friends just walked off the ship and got a few together for a taxi tour, seeing nearly the same things we did (without the snack stop) for a third of the price. We did have an English speaking guide plus a trainee guide who wanted to practice her English but $119 versus $40 is quite a difference in pricing. This is one port that you really need to take a ship’s tour or a taxi tour as otherwise there is really nothing to see. It is quite a poor area with nothing of interest to visitors at the port or nearby town.

Back on board I rushed up to the Lido for the last of the lunch and managed to grab some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, the extent of the salad offerings but a big improvement on yesterday, so the orchids have been given a reprieve.

Tonight was our last formal night so Deb, Audrey, Robyn, Ken and I went to dinner together. I must say that Ken and the other gentlemen scrub up quite well in their penguin suits – chinstrap penguins, that is! On the third last night of the cruise, we’re finally getting into a routine – dinner, chocolate treats and a drink in the Explorers Lounge with others from our group, then moving on to the Explorations Café for another hour or so.

Wednesday, 19 January 2011 Off the coast of Chile

THE DUKAN DIET

I’ve read up on diets over the years and one of the most popular at the moment is the French Dukan Diet. I have easily dismissed it as you eat only protein such as lean meat and avoid fruits and vegetables etc for the first few weeks and I love my fruit and veggies too much. I never would have thought then that we the passengers would be secretly put on this diet as some sort of mass experiment. The only fruit offered at breakfast this morning were the berries (obviously the frozen kind) which topped the waffles. At lunch there was no salad bar and the only vegetables were spinach (again, the frozen kind) and potatoes, and this evening, even in the main dining room, all meals were accompanied by spinach, polenta or rice. I hate spinach! To avoid getting scurvy I forced myself to have the double chocolate mousse cake for dessert as it was garnished with a slice of orange.

I heard that HAL are hoping to truck in fresh produce to Puerto Chacabuco where we stop tomorrow. HAL are not the only ones that are hopeful!!! If not, I’m going to see how many nutrients there are in the orchid table decorations. I’m sure if I get to the Lido early enough I’ll be able to collect enough plants to make a nice tossed salad.

The other interesting topic today was the seas. Suddenly the sick bag supply on the Lido Deck has been halved as we went out into the misnamed Pacific Ocean in the early hours of this morning. At last, some good rolling seas! I’m on Main Deck (Deck 5) and there are Decks 3 and 4 below me and once as I looked out my window a wave came up and hit it. That was pretty unusual though. Unfortunately I couldn’t go out on the Lower Promenade Deck to take some close-up photos of the waves as it was closed off for safety reasons so I had to settle for the viewing area jutting out from in front of the gym.

Most people weren’t too concerned about the swells and took them in their stride – or rather run as you’d be walking along, the ship would give a bit of a roll and you would pick up speed as you lurched along.

The rest of my day was spent watching movies, reading, socialising and going to this evening’s show in the Showroom at Sea.

After days of being able to read in natural light up to 11 pm and it never really getting dark until sunrise came around at 3.15 am, it’s now pitch black again throughout the night. It does make for a better night’s sleep though.

Tuesday 18 January 2011 – Straits of Magellan

THE GOOD WEATHER FAIRY

Eighteen months ago I spent a month in Tuscany and the Greek Isles. The only time it rained was when I needed an excuse to avoid what I was doing and engage in a little retail therapy. Light showers in Siena sent me into the shops and I ended up with three red leather bags from that trip.

Last June I spent a month in the US, including a 14 night Alaskan cruise on the Amsterdam. On the first day at dinner I told my tablemates to expect fine weather. The next evening as we departed our first port of call the Captain announced that in all the time he had cruised in Alaska, he had never had a day in Ketchikan where it hadn’t rained – until that day. We did have showers during the voyage but never when I was out of my cabin. I had fellow passengers thanking me for my presence by the end of the cruise!

Skip forward to this trip and we have been blessed with extraordinarily great weather. Clear blue skies in the Falklands, each day in Antarctica and the Valley of the Glaciers yesterday is rarely heard of, plus very calm seas most of the voyage. (The rain in Iguazu was before the actual cruise began.)  And to top it off, this evening we cruised up to the Amelia Glacier. I took a photo leading up to the glacier then rushed up to the Sky Deck to get a photo of the glacier itself, and would you believe it but the sun came out and lit it up and a rainbow appeared. Coincidence? I think not!



This is a colour photo - not B&W - but the lighting caught my eye





Amelia Glacier



Anyway, I’m available for bookings for world cruises, grand voyages, weddings, christenings, etc.!

Otherwise, today has been pretty laid back as it was an unexpected sea day. The usual activities of lectures, cooking demonstrations, dance classes, movies, digital workshops, etc were offered but I found quiet places to read around the ship and just enjoyed the free time.

I have booked a tour into the Northern Patagonian countryside out of Puerto Chacabuco on Thursday as there doesn’t appear much to do dockside in the small fishing village. I have been assured by the Shore Excursion staff that this would offer the best photo opportunities.

The only other thing of note today is that the Veendam was expecting more supplies in either Ushuaia yesterday or Punta Arenas today but they didn’t show. We have run out of milk, yogurt and this evening there were no salad vegetables and the only cooked vegetables available in the Lido were spinach and potatoes – no carrots, beans, etc. With limited dairy products, desserts are therefore becoming limited in choice. With our next main port of call Puerto Montt on Friday, any vegetarians must be starting to feel a little desperate. As long as they don’t run out of the really good chocolate I shouldn’t be reduced to gnawing my arm off by the end of the week.

Monday, 17 January 2011 – Ushuaia

BIG SPENDER

Today we arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern most city in the world. On the other side of the Beagle Channel, though, is the Chilean Puerto Williams, a little further south, but Argentina conveniently dismisses any claims it might make to the title.



View of Ushuaia from Veendam's Sky Deck

 

Tall ship in port



Except for Antarctica where I wore my $19.95 Alaskan parka over a fleece, most of the time when it’s been cold I have been warm enough in a t-shirt with light sweater and a polar fleece and that was more than enough for today. No gloves, no beanie, although I saw a lot of people going ashore rugged up to the eyeballs but it wasn’t really necessary. I hate the cold but I found I could have done without the sweater beneath the fleece.

As we only had a short time in port, I decided to have a tour free day and instead, with the last of my Argentinean pesos burning a hole in my pocket, decided to hit the shops. I searched high and low for a particular book I wanted on Antarctica but because it also mentioned the Falklands in its title I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’m sure if the title stated the Malvinas (Argentina’s name for the Falklands) I would have found it. Anyone else notice a pattern here?



Avenida San Martin - Ushuaia's main street



With the grand total of 260 pesos (about US$65), I was able to buy a photographic book on Antarctica, a copy of Shacketon’s book on his last trip to Antarctica, some bookmarks and a bottle of water – no stuffed penguins, cutesy caps, or snow domes going home in my luggage!

One thing I noticed here is that the plant life is on steroids, courtesy of the long summer daylight hours. The poppy heads were larger than two open hands put side by side and the lupins were gorgeous.

The town is fairly small so I also had time to visit the Maritime Museum and the Prison Museum, the latter in use as a prison up until the 1930s. The Maritime Museum had scale models of vessels which rounded the Horn over the years. As the last of my ancestors who came to Australia from England sailed around the Horn in the 1870s, I found the models of vessels of that era very interesting. By the way, none of my ancestors got a free trip courtesy of HM Prisons!



A traction engine used in the saw mills - the prisoners
 were  made to cut timber as part of their hard labour



Back in my cabin I found a certificate from the Captain and Ice Pilot certifying that I had sailed to Antarctica and around the Horn, covering the same areas as Sir Ernest Shackleton did on January 14, 1915, exactly 96 years to the day that we sailed the Lemaire Channel and Paradise Bay. How appropriate then that I bought his book of his trip earlier today.

Later this afternoon we cruised along the ‘Avenue of the Glaciers” all named after European countries. HAL’s travel guide said that out of 12 cruises along here, he’d never seen such great weather as we cruised under clear blue skies.



Avenue of the Glaciers



While I was at the formal dinner tonight, Captain Eversen came over the PA system to announce that due to strikes and civil commotion in Punta Arenas our stop there tomorrow has been cancelled. We are therefore going to have a sea day and on Thursday call in at Puerto Chacabuco instead. My CC group has prepaid for a tour tomorrow to see the flea-ridden Magellan penguins (I really must stop maligning these little burrowing creatures but they just don’t stack up against king penguins) so we’ll have to wait and see if we’ll get a refund or organise something else for the other ports.

After dinner, Deb and I discovered where the really good chocolates are kept – dark chocolate crisps and truffles and the same in white chocolate. They only come out in the evening and I’ll make sure I visit again tomorrow evening.

Sunday, 16 January 2011 – Cape Horn

DISAPPOINTING DRAKE

Well, what a disappointment – I didn’t get any action last night! And today wasn’t much better. Once again, Drake’s Passage proved to be more like Drake’s Lake, overcast but pretty calm. I was hoping to see a bit of a swell and have a bit of rocking and rolling, but it wasn’t going to happen. I shouldn’t complain as I’m sure the majority of passengers were very happen with the conditions.

And fortunately I already have my ‘war stories’ from my first cruise if I ever need to one-up someone (unless they have actually been on a ship that sank). That was on the old lumbering Australis from Southampton to Sydney in the 70’s where we had extremely rough seas around the Cape of Good Hope, resulting in one death directly related to the rolling ship, a burial at sea for a death due to natural causes, a mutiny (well, technically a strike somewhere in the Indian Ocean where the second seating guests had to raid the kitchens for food when the crew walked off the job), being strapped into our bunks at night, etc. etc. The crew were still talking about my cruise 2 years later! Being young and invincible at the time, it didn’t put me off cruising.

And speaking of no action, several days ago I went to the singles and solos lunch and sat with a nice group of ladies. I’m sure there are single men on this cruise but I bet they put their heads in the door of the dining room, took one look at the number of women only tables, became very, very afraid, and hightailed it out of there.

Anyway, with calm seas and not much to see today until later in the evening, I listened to lectures on icebreakers, the history of discovery voyages around the horn and what to see in Ushuaia. This exhausting program required a couple of power snoozes throughout the day to sustain me.

Coming up to 8 pm we approached Cape Horn. Unfortunately the skies weren’t conducive to great photos but I’ve attached a few anyway. The longitude running through the highest point of Cape Horn is where it is acknowledged that the Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean, hence usually very rough seas.




Cape Horn

  

Where east meets west - the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans merge here.




Saturday, 15 January 2011 – Antarctica

ICE PILOTS AND BEANIE HAIR

Our third and final day of Antarctic cruising – and yet another day of clear blue skies!

We have had on board since BA some staff for Palmer Station who we dropped off this morning. The program said we should arrive about 6 am for their transfer and we would pick up a couple of other staff to take on to Santiago. I was a little late in getting motivated but was up on deck by 6.10 am. Missed it again by that much! Actually it was well and truly over by then as we arrived earlier than planned, at 5.30 am, and the people who were up at that time said they couldn’t actually see Palmer Station as it was tucked away up an inlet but they did see the zodiac transfers. Really, I don’t know why I bother!

This morning we entered the Lemaire Channel again, heading south.

 

Lemaire Channel scenery




I’ve heard that HAL has the best ice pilots of any of the large cruise lines and today’s journey proved that. From my vantage point from the front of the Sky Deck at the top of the Veendam I was able to watch our progress as the channel narrowed towards the southern end. There was a lot of speculation from those around me that we would shortly have to turn around and go back as there didn’t appear to be any way through the icebergs or the narrow opening but the Veendam continued and easily manoeuvred its way through. We have now cruised the Lemaire Channel from north to south and then south to north.

 

View from the Sky Deck





Straight ahead


 We’d passed a lot of crabeater seals on icebergs along the way so when we turned around to go back through the channel I changed to my larger lens to get some photos of these seals, moving down to the Lower Promenade Deck to get closer to them.

Two days of wearing headwear to protect my ears from the cold has given me a bad case of beanie hair.  Instead of my usual full-bodied wavy hair, my hair has been flattened and no amount of brushing has been able to put any life back into it. Several people I’ve met over the last week didn’t recognise me this afternoon with this new hairstyle – or at least I presumed that was the reason they ignored me! Shampoo, conditioner and a hair dryer on the highest setting is required.

We’re now headed back north across Drake’s Passage – and the skies have become grey. How lucky were we with our beautiful blue skies in Antarctica!