Sea Day 1 of 9

Feel free to read that again. NINE sea days coming up.

A bit bumpy first thing, and the pools and decks were closed because of the wind. But by teatime, things had calmed down enough to open everything (except, bizarrely, the roof, despite the fact it was 20 degrees in the shade). I tried to go for a swim, but apparently, when they close off the pool, they don’t bother to heat it. So after getting in as far as just above my knees before realising my toes were already going numb, I beat a yelpingly hasty retreat. Settled for going back to my cabin and having a shower while it was calm – although we are still rolling a bit, so the water basically alternates between warm and icy depending on which way the ship is moving. I wanted icy, to cool the sunburn on my shoulders, so I had to sway the opposite way, at the same speed, so that I was out of the way when the warm bits flowed.  Just taking a shower becomes decidedly complicated on a ship. And you cannot weigh yourself unless you are in port, because the movement of the ship on the water means your mass fluctuates! Most passengers find all the rocking very soothing – makes it very hard to stay awake. Mum and Dad were dozing too.

Met a new waitress today – there are three types of waiting staff – food servers, table clearers and drinks sellers (who get commission on every drink they sell). Her name is Geneva (apparently) and she is from Manila. We’re going there. We could have picked her up. But instead, P&O flew her from Manila to Tokyo, Tokyo to San Francisco, San Francisco to Atlanta (?!) and then Atlanta to Valparaiso. She spent 24 hours on planes. And then boarded Arcadia. So for someone who, two days ago had never set foot on a plane or a ship, she was having a hell of a time of it. She has boarded just in time for the roughest weather since the Western Approaches and she has not been well at all, poor thing. She was remarkably cheery considering, but she did look pale. I hope she gets her sea legs soon.

Today was Shrove Tuesday, so they served a pancake buffet on deck (and crepe suzette at dinner). They didn’t bother to offer, but when I asked the Head Chef for gluten-free pancakes, he was happy to make them for me. I just had to wait for a bit, while they were made, especially for me. I just worry that all the other coeliacs on board, who are not as stubborn as me, missed out, because if you don’t ask around here, you definitely don’t get. In the end, I got three (I had asked for two!), rather pallid-looking, but perfectly yummy, pancakes with sugar and lemon juice. Yum. Good thing I hadn’t ordered a big supper (cold meat and salad).

More about the tablemates: Dale is a radar engineer for the US Navy in the Marshall Islands (American base, off Australia). Still not sure what Paula does. They say “we” a lot, so maybe she works for the DOD as well. Dunno. Her dream is to teach ballroom dancing on a cruise ship, but Dale doesn’t dance, so I don’t fancy her chances!

Michael has stories to tell about online dating. He is clearly very lonely, although I have no idea why, because he’s absolutely lovely. He says that dates go well about 50% of the time, and the best way is to talk on the phone first.  Cue discussion about the sex habits of the youth of today – Tindr, etc. All sex, no marriage, seemed to be the consensus. They looked pointedly at me a few times, but I pointed out that I am not the youth of today, by any stretch of the imagination, and we left it at that!

After dinner, we went to the show, because it was one we didn’t think we had seen before, and also, due to the first sector having no shows at all, due to the stage malfunctioning, I haven’t actually been to one yet! It wasn’t very good. They were doing a Rough Routine (they learn 17 shows, and two versions of each – one for rough weather, one for smooth (with more jumps and stuff in)) and it was a little mechanical – like they were getting moves muddled in their heads between the two versions, which is entirely possible. But the singing was quite good. And then, about two thirds the way through, the stage broke. Again. So we sat with the house lights up for ten minutes and then they finished the show – although it seemed to have suddenly metamorphosed into Jersey Boys, as all the songs they did after the pause were Frank Valli and the Four Seasons songs. I suppose there is a connection with a show entitled New York Rhythm, but if you said that Jersey was New York to a genuine inhabitant of either, I think you’d get a punch on the nose.

As the show started, Michael came and sat with me, because he said that Laurie had snapped at him twice and he needed some space. We swapped some soothing comments about people in pain and letting them have their moments. We then chatted about previous cruises, ferry journeys we have taken, and seasickness tales, until the show started and by the third song, he was asleep! He woke up for most of the applause bits. When the stage broke, he went to check on Laurie, who was sitting at the back, in the wheelchair section (leg broken in two places, remember?). But she wasn’t there. So he left to go and look for her. This may turn into a bigger barney than I was originally expecting. Doesn’t bode well. They only boarded yesterday!

Clocks go back tonight to GMT-4, which won’t help with anyone’s sleep patterns.

Monday 8^th Feb – Valparaiso, Chile

We expected disembarkation to be chaos. We’re just trying to see the town, but they were offloading 1000 passengers and loading 1000 fresh ones (who will undoubtedly bring fresh germs with them –oh goody). Having negotiated the forms, x-rays and sniffer dogs checking us for food, we made it out into the enormous terminal. As expected, the taxi drivers were very stroppy and kept insisting we had to take a tour for an hour. We eventually found someone willing to take our money to deliver us to the Ascuncion Funicular. It was down a tiny alleyway. If we hadn’t had his guidance, we would never have spotted it!

Once again, we lacked local currency (you can’t buy it out of the country or take it out of the country or spend it anywhere else, so why would you want any?!), but a very nice man in the queue, who basically wanted to practice his English on us, changed some money for us, so we could go up – and come back down later. The woman on the turnstile was unspeakably unhelpful – she could not have cared less how many tourists she turned away. I wonder if her employers feel the same about all the money she refuses?!

It was a short trip – probably less than a minute – but a ride in a tiny 1883 original funicular is a rare treat for me, so I was like a puppy with two tails.

At the top, it was still warm and cloudy – I expected higher breezes, but there were none. We strolled for a bit through the UNESCO World Heritage Site buildings, in their pretty colours and varied architecture. They are required to protect the facades, but they are happy to gut them and rebuild the insides from scratch, so there were some very derelict-looking works in progress. There was some interested public art/mural work, but a surprising amount of dog poo. Not an issue we normally face in touristy places! We found an art gallery with a café attached, and had a drink on their balcony, overlooking the whole bay. Spectacular.

We had to change our planned route because the funicular we had intended to head towards, in order to come back down, was not working. So we wandered a bit further, and I found the particular piece of public art I wanted mum to see – a staircase (yes, there are hundreds in this place – it’s built across (allegedly) 42 hills) painted like a piano keyboard, located on? Beethoven Passsage, of course. I saw it on the port talk, which, as usual, I duly watched with the sound off. The bits I did hear involved her describing the whole town as one big, very steep, staircase. I have no doubt she put some people off from bothering to go ashore. In fact, it was quite similar to Salvador in its layout – some bits are up and some are down. There’s plenty of “flat” available. Even the funiculars have level access. But I bet she didn’t tell anyone that.

From there, we found ourselves walking downhill and so, instead of taking a second funicular, we walked back down. The murals and art became ever more spectacular as we descended, climaxing at a Café Sunflowers with Van Gogh’s Starry Night painted on the side! Sadly, with the really amazing art increase came a commensurately massive surge in tagging. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most graffiti-filled place we have ever seen. There is not a single surface that has not been tagged. Even the canvas fences around cafés have been tagged. Hotels? Hospitals? Government buildings? Glass? Brick? Antique plaster? Nothing is immune, as far as I can see, except churches. It’s hideous. This could be quite a nice place, but the tagging makes everything look so ugly and neglected, it’s hard to see past it.

At the bottom, we found a taxi to take us to the market, but when he explained that the food court was upstairs, and there was no lift or escalator, he instead took us two blocks away, to a lovely little local café, where we had a very nice lunch. It had little individual booths/houses (with proper tiled roofs) if you wanted more privacy during your meal. Mum and dad had toasted cheese sandwiches and I had steak and chips – there aren’t many options for lunch in Chile if you can’t eat cheese, ham, prawns or bread!

The sun came out after lunch, so we then went to the Tourist Information to ask their advice, but it was shut, so we got a taxi to the Ibis (the only hotel we could find that we had heard of!) and used their wifi to Skype home. The signal at the London end gradually deteriorated as more and more people logged on after work (we are three hours behind – so it was teatime for us, but home time for London), so we gave up after a while, and went back to the ship. Mum wanted to shower while we were still in port;  I wrote and posted some postcards before dinner.

The best bit of advice I can give you for here is, get a decent map. The one handed out at the terminal was RUBBISH, and did not show either all the roads – which you would have was a given for a tourist roadmap of your town, wouldn’t you? -, or differentiate between up and down, or even explain where the funiculars really went. The map handed out at the Ibis was much better and more helpful, but, sadly, we were almost done by then. Go there first. They have a whole drawer full of maps you can pinch.

We found out at dinner that there was a Sheraton somewhere, but as none of the maps here show any hotels (another first for us!), we made do with the Ibis, which was fine.

Our new tablemates are:

Laurie and Michael – American, live in LA but from New York and Alabama via Brazil. Laurie broke her leg in two places three weeks ago, and had an operation last week, so Michael is going to have to push her around in a wheelchair for their entire holiday. They are leaving in Auckland, because the whole point of the trip is that Laurie wanted to see New Zealand. They were not over-enthusiastic about the food, and Laurie point blank refused to drink the coffee when she realised that decaff means instant! Michael works in International Sales for FedEx and Laurie is his third wife – he has children by both the previous ones. Sounds like a good reason to leave the country as often as possible! His employers pay for his internet when he is away, so they can keep in touch with him. This makes me VERY jealous indeed!

Paula and Dale – American, also Californians, I think, and also from the LA area. They live in Australia, on a 39-foot yacht. They had to buy some dress shirts for Dale to come on this cruise, because they don’t have enough storage for things they don’t need regularly. Mum and Dad talked to them, mostly. I’ll try and learn more tomorrow.

Michael. Travelling alone. From the UK. I don’t think I’ve established where he is from or what he does yet, but he is certainly very nice.

My sunburn is very sore.

UPDATE: Our luck may have broken. We have pootled around South America under what seemed like our own, personal high – low pressure, sunshine, calm seas. Wherever we went, people said it was the first decent weather they had had in days/weeks/months. We got sunburn in the Falkland Islands, a place renowned for being none too hospitable, weather-wise. We went round Cape Horn three times, because it was so calm, we could. Well, we got blasé and a jolly good slap in the face is now being duly administered. The Pacific was not called the Pacific because of her peaceable nature (despite what the psycho port talk lady might say). Quite the opposite. In fact, she was given the name, in the somewhat superstitious and clearly very over-optimistic hope that it would encourage her to calm the hell down, in order to live up to the name. She hasn’t. We left Valparaiso during first sitting dinner, so we got our dinner in the calm of the bay. I don’t know how well second sitting ate.  Since we left Valparaiso and headed west, it has been getting steadily bumpier. Suffice to say, I am writing this at 4am local time.  It’s bumpy now. very bumpy.

Sea Day – 6^th February

Weather is now 16 in the shade. Might take my cossie out today and see if the pool is back in use (it has been closed for maintenance).

12 lengths, once the roof opened. First, we had to ensure an hour of angle-grinding and hammering as they did something to the roof mechanism. You don’t realise quite what an echo chamber it is until you are sat enduring that! Ended up having to take two Paracetamol, because my head was pounding.

Once we entered the South Pacific during dinner yesterday, we have really pegged it north overnight, covering over 400 miles – we usually average between 300 and 350, so the Captain must really want us to feel warmer! (If we ask him, he’ll probably gloss over the following wind that is helpfully shoving us ever northwards) So this will count as a success. It is now 17 in the shade and probably well over 20 in the sun, the roof is open, the sky is a cloudless blue and someone thinks they saw a dolphin. You don’t get passengers any happier than that. Throw in a penguin memorabilia sale in the shops, and the mood is positively cheery.

Update: I may have been glutened at dinner. I had breaded fish, which was supposed to be in gluten-free breadcrumbs. Since our initial issues, they have so far never failed to protect me, and serve me ‘safe’ food, but right now, I feel REALLY ill. I’m hot, to the point of sweating – it is literally trickling down my face and back, my stomach hurts, a LOT, and my dress got so tight I was worried I would have to be cut out of it. It was fairly snug when I put it on, but I was really frightened I wouldn’t be able to get it off. I did get out of it in the end, but I think my stomach is still swelling, and if we’re short on motive power, I have an endless supply of burps available to push us along. None of these are good signs. All at once bodes even worse. Don’t think I’ll be straying from my cabin again any time soon.

The head waiter, Shelton, rang my cabin at 8.45, to see if I was okay, which was very sweet of him. I told him it was probably cross-contamination, rather than a full-on glutening, as although I still feel ill, I haven’t deteriorated the way I expected I would, so maybe the worst is over.

Sea Day – 2 of 2

Sunburn. It’s scorching out there.  18 in the shade – high twenties in the direct sunlight. There was a slight breeze, which was surprisingly chilly, but the warmth was definitely winning. Did 20 lengths today – less current. I also got distracted chatting to a lady about glaciers we have seen, which meant I got more done before I noticed my arms aching.

My elbows are a mess. Not only are they being abused by frequent reading/leaning on stuff, but they are also used for pushing lift buttons, so they’re taking a fair amount of abuse. Not somewhere I normally focus on moisturising, but I may make a little more effort for a while.

Gosh there are a lot of Aussies on this ship, all of a sudden. And apparently, more get on tomorrow. It’s the end of the second sector, so we lose 1000 and gain 900, allegedly, mostly Aussies. Spiffing. Also means we had to say goodbye to Chris, Fran and Abi. Much kissing and promising to stay in touch. I’m really sad about losing them. Just when I was starting to like them! Early start tomorrow. Port Day. Valparaiso. Here endeth the second sector.

Sea Day – Amalia Glacier

Well, at 4.30pm approximately. Until then, it’s just more lovely scenery, Sudoku and lunch.

And random announcements from the Bridge, such as the fact that, near where we are passing by now, there is a settlement of around 1500 Welsh-speakers, in three towns. The Welsh came over to help settle this area, at the request of the Chilean government. Well, there you go then. Apparently, their Welsh is still intelligible by those from Wales ‘proper’, unlike Brazilian Portuguese, which is utterly incomprehensible to Portuguese people from Portugal. I have witnessed this myself. When I lived in Caen, I had a Brazilian boy and a Portuguese girl in my class, and their common languages were English and French. They couldn’t understand each other when they tried in Portuguese. So huzzah for the Chilean Welsh people (or are they Welsh Chileans?).

After dinner, we had our photo taken in front of the glacier, out on the open deck at the back of Deck 9, at 8pm at night, in sunshine so bright we were squinting (sunset is 9.30pm-ish around here), standing in our shirt sleeves, as we did in Alaska. Allegedly, the Chilean pilots have said this is the best weather they have ever done this tour in for over ten years. I don’t believe a word of it. This is glacier weather. We always have beautiful weather when we visit glaciers. It’s something about the conditions necessary to make the darn things – it can’t be too wet, or they will flow too smoothly and quickly to become glaciers, and the snow will just rinse away. So the air here is always dry and clear. One of us does not understand how glaciers work, and I’m starting to think it’s not me that’s getting it wrong. Glaciers form when the snow moves too slowly and so it stays at cold altitudes long enough to accumulate. If it’s wet, it won’t stick. Stands to reason. It’s hardly rocket science. I’m not an expert in fluid dynamics, but I think even I get this.

Sea Day – Pio X Glacier

Although for some reason, the Bridge crew and some of the staff have decided it was named after Pope Pius the Eleventh, not Pope Pius the Tenth. Seriously, how hard are Roman numerals, really?

This glacier is MUCH bigger than the Amalia of yesterday. Proper sized. And, allegedly, the only glacier in the world that is growing, rather than retreating. Well, we are in the world’s second biggest non-polar ice field, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.

The weather is so glorious today, it’s actually quite warm out in the sun. Very pleasant indeed. ‘Officially’, the outside air temperature is 11 degrees in the shade, but I reckon you can add maybe five or six more out in the sun. So, like I say, very pleasant indeed.

We have been in very calm channels while visiting these glaciers, so it has been possible to have lovely long soaks in the shower without fear of the ground moving from under you.  We should enter the Pacific at just about dinner time. Could get bumpy.

Happy Friday, everyone. Have a nice weekend.

P.S. Noticed something on the credits of a film the other day. What the blazes is a Biscuit Rig?!

Tuesday 3^rd February – Punta Arenas

No internet. Nice start. Sometimes happens when we’re in places with a strong military presence.

Tendering ashore was quite painless, although until we cast off, it was a bit rough – mostly because of the waves bouncing off the ship and coming back against the little boats alongside. Once we were moving, however, the sea was like glass; mirror-smooth.

Punta Arenas means Sandy Point, apparently. And here, they check your bags when you arrive, not for bombs, but food. They are as paranoid about invasive species here as they are in Australia.

There is a very welcoming, bright yellow-painted tourist centre on the quayside, full of vastly over-priced souvenirs, not enough maps and unhelpful but smiley people – all the things we need! We negotiated a route through the taxi drivers punting for trade, and walked from the port gate into town – two blocks away from the water, uphill, and then three to the right, through a residential area, which was pretty, if a little run down.

In fact, the whole town was run down, with individual buildings varying from breathtakingly pretty colonial architecture, to, um, utilitarian ugly basic, often right next door to each other. If it keeps the rain off and the tsunamis at bay, it’ll do. This place used to be a major coaling and supply port for ships rounding the Horn, and was once one of the busiest ports in the world. It had a second wind of success when oil was discovered nearby in the forties, but it is not the hub it used to be – other than as a jumping off point for trips to the Antarctic, which is now the major trade here. It is not the most hospitable place on Earth, with strong winds blowing all year round and heavy snows in the winter – the Patagonian permanent icecaps are not too far to the west of here.  This planet has permanent ice in other places than the two poles. Don’t forget the permafrosts of Siberia either. This is part of the world is further South than anywhere else on Earth – it will take us three days to get back up to the same latitude as South Africa, for example. Today was breezy and sunny, with one or two spots of rain (calling it spitting would be a compliment). I wore a long sleeved t-shirt under  my thickest cardigan with the fluffy hood, and overheated in very short order.

We stopped for a cold drink at a very anonymous-looking café, called the Discovery. It was pretty basic – the chairs were plastic, as were the tablecloths, and the lighting was dingy to the point of obscure (seriously, couldn’t read our maps, it was so dark), but the toilets were clean and well-provisioned, so we were quite happy. Even after I noticed that our drinks were best before the end of February 2014. Meh, it is February. Close enough.

Then we continued on through the town until we found the main square. This is pretty much the only thing marked on the maps they supply. Never mind the insults our port guide woman usually indulges in; this time, there really is nothing here. There are a few museums inside a few mansions built by founders and millionaires who made their money here, but that’s about it.

The square is very pretty, and the buildings around it are colonial ornate and expensive-looking (you know the style by now – French/ Spanish/ Victorian/ Georgian). In fact, the cathedral was probably the plainest building in sight. We walked around the square, and found the rather splendid edifice known as Sarah Braun’s house (she and her husband pretty much built this town). It was supposed to have a coffee shop inside, but the man on the door wanted us to pay to go through the museum first, before he would allow us to go to the coffee shop, so we just kept walking.

On the east side of the square, we found the Hotel Cabo de Hornos (the Cape Horn hotel) which was very nice indeed – modern but with some unusual touches, such as llama-hide chair covers. We went and ordered a snack lunch and I used the wifi for a while. Well, quite a while, because the service was so lethargic that it was virtually going in reverse, so there was definitely no rush. Most of the hotel residents seemed to be on their way to Antarctica, or on their way back home from there. Antarctic adventurers are not as young as I expected them to be – there was a surprising amount of grey hair in evidence. Maybe they’re the only ones who can afford it these days? Their presence may be why the owners decided not to heat the place too much – to allow them to acclimatise! I kept my coat on. The food was fine and the bill was reasonable (although at 1015 pesos to the pound, it didn’t LOOK it at first glance!), and we did manage some Skyping before all the other cruise passengers arrived and started clogging up the bandwidth.

There were market stalls set up in between the trees on the square (seems to be a theme around these parts) and so we browsed them all and bought some bits. Having purchased Stanley, the penguin mascot of the Falkland Islands, I duly bought him a companion, whom we have named Olly – as you do (well, he’s short and round and going to live with Stanley for the foreseeable future, so…) – along with the obligatory t-shirt, magnets and postcards. Perhaps by way of compensation for how little there is to see or do here, they have made all of their postcards uniformly HUGE, so anyone who receives one from here will find it had to be cut down to size to fit in the P&O envelope (we find they arrive quicker and with more predictability/reliability in envelopes than if sent loose).

We then strolled back to the ship in the sunshine, via a different route, to see a little more of the place. It was all blessedly downhill from now on. Mum was a bit perturbed by the number of stray dogs we saw, but they didn’t seem unhappy. For the most part, they just dozed in the sunny patches of pavement (which were all smooth as a baby’s behind, not a pothole in sight) and ignored the humans entirely. We went past the naval headquarters on our way back – which may explain the internet being jammed this morning.

The queue for the tenders was stupid, and even though it goes down 100 people at a time, it took us a while to get back to the ship. At dinner, we found out that it had become so rough around BOB-time, that they had actually stopped running the tenders for a while, which meant we left an hour late. The captain announced we would be doing a “fast run” to make up the time tonight, so we will get to the glaciers as planned tomorrow. I don’t know who he thinks he is fooling, but eighteen knots is not a fast run, and anyone on this ship who has ever cruised before knows that full well. Whether he was trying to impress us, or keep our ship’s true capabilities under wraps for some reason, I don’t know, but he failed on both counts.  But bless him for trying.

Side note: on my return from dinner, I found Stan and Olly in bed together, with Olly sitting on Stan’s head and Stan resplendent in my sunglasses, looking very pleased with himself. My cabin steward must get really bored.

Sea Day 3 of 3. Beagle Channel.

Here come the glaciers. (Insert debate here: GLAY-SHER? GLAY-SEE-ER? GLA-SEE-ER? We settled for the middle one probably being the most grammatically correct, but the third one feeling the most natural to say. The announcer on the Bridge worked his way through them all).

Now, for those of you who really know your geography and/or have an atlas open at South America in an attempt to follow my journey, you will see that things got even more bizarre last night, after I stopped typing. Having gone past the Cape twice East to West, we then did it West to East, as I told you, and then we just kept going. We went back up the eastern side of Patagonia and entered the Beagle Channel this morning, which will take us back from East to West. Whoever designed this route was on some serious substances at the time. I want some. This is weird.

Anyway, now we are in the Beagle Channel and, once again, heading in the correct direction – East to West. We have had announcements alleging penguins swimming around the ship (although I have yet to find anyone that saw that) but “No whales yet”. The Beagle Channel is basically a calmer route across the bottom of the continent, that obviates the need to actually go around the Horn at all. It feels like you’re in the Panama Canal, but instead of marvelling at the human ingenuity/ perseverance necessary to cut it, you’re gazing at the glaciers that cut it instead, and the (fairly little but admittedly permanently snow-capped) mountains on either side that were separated in the process (twice the height of Ben Nevis is hardly huge by global standards, I don’t think).

The weather was varied – clear and cool but not damp, so you could cope in just long sleeves and trousers –  rather like Alaska – with occasional bouts of bright sunshine and the occasional, short but unenthusiastic, rain shower, that passed by as quickly as they arrived.

And that was it for much of the day. We passed some pretty scenery – snow-capped mountains and barren landscapes and a few waterfalls and some glaciers. That’s it. That’s a summary of the past twelve hours, right there.  Now, please don’t get me wrong – I love a pretty view as much as the next person – but twelve hours of what essentially amounts to the same stuff can be a little wearing. We had stopped bothering to take photos by about 3pm. There’s only so many mountains and glaciers and pretty water patterns you can stand. Frankly, I think if I hadn’t stopped, the camera would have refused anyway – like a horse coming to yet another jump and thinking, you know what, enough already.

I spotted one condor and we saw a whale come up for air (which is essentially a few inches of hump and a bit of spray;  no point in staring – it can be 20 minutes before you see another, and we were moving at 20mph). That was pretty much it for wildlife. For the whole day. Apart from one or two other small birds (some people swore they saw penguins on a little island/rocky outcrop, but I remain unconvinced), that was it for the whole day’s viewing and doing.

It would probably sound appallingly blasé to say that, frankly, if you’ve seen one fjord full of glaciers, you’ve seen them all, but, really, they do look awfully similar. A breathtakingly beautiful, awe-inspiring field of ice slowly carving its way between the mountains is very similar to the next breathtakingly beautiful, awe-inspiring field of ice slowly carving its way between the mountains. And remember, we have sailed the fjords of Norway AND I have flown over the fjords of Alaska in a seaplane, as well as sailing them, so when I say we’ve seen a few, we’ve seen a few. I do feel extremely grateful to have the sort of life where I get to just gaze at this level of natural beauty all day, but, at the same time, the novelty does wear off after a while.

All in all, our transit of the Beagle Channel can be summarised as pretty, but dull. Which is probably one of the meanest things you can say about a person, and it doesn’t seem any kinder to say it about a landscape.

Tomorrow? Punta Arenas. And if you can find that on a map, you get a prize.

Sea Day 2 of 3 – Cape Horn – Welcome to February

This has been a quite bizarre day. Not content with sailing us around Cape Horn once, we have actually done it three times. No, really. The first time it was misty, so we went again, and it was sunny, so we got better photos, and then they turned the ship around and did it again, so the people sitting on the other side could have a look. There are no words for my bemusement. They managed to find us an island to go around, so we weren’t just shuttling back and forth, but it was still pretty odd.

Luckily, it has been relatively calm – Force 6, and pitching, but not much rolling, with only a few white horses and a little spray now and then. We have all heard the stories of the Roaring Forties (where there is no land, and the seas and winds circulate around the planet unimpeded, and therefore run MUCH faster than elsewhere), and this is also the point where the Atlantic meets the Pacific. So we were expecting it to be rough. They even put out the “Motion Discomfort Bag” dispensers. But we haven’t really experienced much rough weather at all – no one I saw was ill or even queasy – and bearing in mind we have been tootling around here all day, we have been pushing our luck to its absolute limits on the bumpiness front.

Today, I have particularly enjoyed listening to the creaking of the ship. When you can get away from the clattering of cutlery and the banging of plates and the nattering of people and the piped music and muzak and the screech of the coffee makers and the bings and bongs of the lifts (bing means going up, and bing bong means going down), you have the chance to hear the ship creaking, as the movement of the water pulls the vessel in different directions. If you close your eyes, you can imagine yourself on something much smaller, like the Grand Turk (used in the Hornblower series) or the small ships that the original explorers came here in. The creaking sound is the same, only the size of the waves needed to cause it differs.  And although those old ships were wood, and we are made of metal, even metal creaks under these sorts of stresses. Magellan was here for months, tootling about mapping things, finding the passage through from the Atlantic to the Pacific that he had been sent to find, and exterminating his crew in the process. He arrived with 250+ men in six ships, and when he got home, about three years later, I think, he had one ship and about 18 crew left.  Darwin came by here on the Beagle, as well. I doubt their time here was as relaxed and calm as ours. I did notice that there were a lot of small rocks sticking their heads out of the water, not far from land. I think I am not making too much of an intellectual leap to say I know precisely what happened to a lot of the ships that came this way, particularly in the dark…

But driving around in circles looking at precisely the same view several times over is a very uninteresting way to spend a day. Whilst the scenery is pretty breathtaking, it doesn’t get more so with a second viewing, or a third, come to that. We took some photos of the chapel on the southernmost tip of the southernmost landmass on Earth, if you exclude Antarctica, and the flagpole next to it, and the beacon for shipping. And that’s it. Apart from a few birds (much less than yesterday – they’re not dumb enough to fly this far south if they don’t have to), there is nothing else here but sea and rocks and the one crashing (rather prettily, I’ll grant you) into the other. Worth doing? Definitely. Nice to be able to say I’ve done it? Definitely? Worth doing three times? Nope, definitely not.

Sunday 31^st January – Sea Day 1 of 3

The next day or so will be the Bumpy Bit.

Things I have learned today #1: Prince Charles is a fully-trained commando and helicopter pilot.

At 10am, they played the church bells through the cabins. Apparently, we now all have to go to church, whether or not we are Christians. Registered my (perhaps unsurprising) protest. They didn’t play the bells through the cabins on the first leg, so why they have started to convert us all now, I have no idea. Not a pleasing start to the day.

Round The World lunch today, so needed to get up anyway (although not admitting that to them). As this may be the roughest/second roughest day (Cape Horn tomorrow) of the whole cruise, possibly not the best choice, timing-wise, but I suppose it will serve as a distraction for 400 of the passengers.

It was quite a pleasant meal, all in all. We had a Third Officer, on our table, Robert Waite. Lovely young man, who was the epitome of an excellent host, listening to our stories about other ships and other cruises, and politely declining to tell us stuff we were not supposed to know! We also had some obnoxious twit called Chris, a fellow passenger, who was so rude, he would not only interrupt anyone else who was speaking, but also talk over people, and even tried to butt in and tell a story I had already started! I let him join in for the punchline, but he was really getting on my nerves by the end. For those who have REALLY been paying attention over the years, the punchline was “Prove it”; do you remember the story?

Overate somewhat, so then went for a siesta. That’s the nice bit about cruising. Want an afternoon nap? Have one. No one minds, no one cares. Do what makes you happy. And it is Sunday, after all. If I was at home, I’d probably be having one there anyway!

Today the sea is a turquoise-green colour (or for the painters, Pthalo Blue and Transparent Yellow combined about 40:60), the sky is blue, the sun is out, but it’s a bit windy (Force 6, gusting to Force 8 at times) and consequently a bit bumpy, and a little chilly (11 degrees Celsius). It’s nice if you can find shelter from the wind but still in the sunlight, though.

We are, as I type, absolutely level with the tip of Patagonia right now, if you want to find us on a map. Go to the very bottom of South America and where it curves to the right at the bottom? We’re about half an inch to the right of that. I will take a photo of the map and add it here. We are the big, white, not in any way to scale boat/bullet-shaped item.

After dinner, watched The Imitation Game (this time with uninterrupted audio). The sea is surprisingly calm, considering where we are. It was almost like a mirror at sunset. I hope it stays like that tomorrow!

This is the one we have been waiting for.

Saturday 30 January – Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

Things I have learned today #1: the highest YouTube use per capita in the world is in Saudi Arabia.

Definitely the best day so far. In fact, this may be hard to beat at all over the coming months.

The tenders ashore were prompt and the sea was calm. The sun shone and the sky was a startlingly bright blue. There was barely a breath of wind.  It could not have been more perfect, weather-wise. In fact, we all got a little burned, because the weather we had been promised by the ship’s forecast was so entirely wrong. We were all bundled up under copious layers and when we took them off, in the blazing sunshine, we had no suncream with us!

We came ashore and immediately went into the Tourist Information/ Gift Shop called the Jetty Centre (no prizes for guessing its location). In fact, I bought so much stuff, that they offered to hold it all for me to collect on my way back, so I didn’t have to carry it all around all day!

We discussed the various penguin viewing trips available with the tour guides outside and they said that mum would not be able to do them, due to the uneven surfaces and long walks. So we just pootled through town. I made a point of visiting the Conservation Centre and every Gift Shop I could find. If I have to contribute to the economy of anywhere, I would like it to be here. So I shopped and shopped. Chances are, when I get back, if you get anything by way of souvenir, it was probably bought here. [Irene, I got you a spoon. I hope that’s okay.]

We had a bite of lunch (sandwiches and cold drinks) at the West Store Café, which was basically in the building between the supermarket (ostensibly Waitrose (no, really, they stock Waitrose Essentials), but with some Tesco and Iceland products too) and BHS. Their wifi didn’t work though, so we headed back towards town.

Dad eventually managed to book a taxi to take us on a tour of the East Island – there aren’t many taxis here and we have, by disembarking, doubled the population of the town (what it will be like on Monday when there are two, bigger, ships in at the same time, I dread to think) – and while we waited for it, I used the Jetty Centre’s wifi to send a couple of emails (although it was almost as expensive as the ship’s!). Then Colin (and his wife) picked us up in their car/taxi. Almost everyone here drives a 4×4, and we were shortly to discover why. Whilst the streets of Stanley are smooth and tarmacked and lovely, outside of town, things are not quite so uniform or predictable. We dropped Colin’s wife at home, so she could check on the dogs and chickens, and then headed off on our tour.

He took us to see the bay where the Argentinians landed in 1982, but this is now inaccessible, because as soon as they were ashore, they mined it furiously, assuming that the British would land at the same point. They didn’t; they landed about 70 miles away at the other end of the island. It’s a beautiful spot and, if they ever clear all the mines, you can bet someone will build a very expensive hotel there. Apparently, the mines are being cleared by a firm from Zimbabwe – I imagine they have a fair amount of expertise in these matters, because there has only ever been one accident. The main problem is that the mines were planted in sand, and sand SHIFTS with wind and water movement, which means the mines MOVE. This does not make them easy to find and renders any maps or plans utterly useless. When we talked about using the grazing sheep to clear the mines, Colin said he thought that was an urban myth. I have my doubts. It seems a very sensible way of doing things, to me. Come to think of it, I don’t think we saw any sheep at all on our tour. We saw geese, and horses, and penguins (OBViously), but I don’t recall any sheep. That’s odd!

Anyway, he took us to a viewpoint where we could see Arcadia out in the Sound, and some shipwrecks closer inland (hence us tendering in!), and then he showed us some of the ‘sights’ – such as Government House, the statue of Margaret Thatcher, and the memorial to the 255 who died “to liberate us”.

Then we parked ourselves in the Waterfront Kitchen Café to while away the time until the tender queue subsided – it never did, but each boat holds over 100 people, so the line moves fairly rapidly – and we were back on board by 5.30 (BOB was 6). I shook all my bags out on the bed. I think I will need to check my credit card, to make sure it hasn’t melted at the corners. It seems to have worked VERY hard today.

Things I have learned today #2: The Romans quarried under their own city to such an extent that more than one new sinkhole a week opens up somewhere under the modern inhabitants  – around 80 a year.

Bed straight after dinner. Utterly shattered.

Sea Day 1 of 2.

No fruit. Didn’t get there in time. They put it away at 11.30 and mum and dad were at a talk that overran, so they couldn’t get it for me either. Apparently, our current captain (we changed Master at Rio) was on board the Canberra during its participation in the Falklands War, so he has some very interesting stories to tell. Sudoku, swim (10 lengths – the current was pretty hard work today, and it wasn’t very warm either, but then the sun came out, so I dried off the lazy way). Dinner (the chef needs more practice with the GF Yorkshire puddings – so far they are more like US biscuits and gravy than anything else), cinema (good film, glad I finally got to see it!), bed.

Sea Day 2 of 2.

Ditto, but tonight is a formal, so will have to get all togged up and stuff.