Category: Daily Posts

After disembarking the ship at 8.30 am, we were driven to Santiago, the capital of Chile, for a day exploring by ourselves. The drive took almost 2 hours which enabled us to see a fair bit of countryside on the way. We were dropped off at Plaza de la Constitucion…

This morning we got up bright and early to go to our painting class. Today was the onboard exhibition of the masterpieces painted by members of the group and we both donated pieces for the extravaganza, which took place at 1.15 (see below for photographic evidence!). 🤓 After lunch we…

Yippee!! Land!! After being tendered ashore at the crack of dawn, we were coached up Mount Osorno (a volcano), in the pelting rain and dense fog, and with the coach screaming and shuddering under the strain, whereupon on reaching the summit we could see absolutely nothing whatsoever. As the rain…

Lazy day. Went to an audience with Ian Rankin this morning (very interesting) and then Bridge slept pretty much all afternoon, the useless lump! 😆

At 7 this morning we awoke to find ourselves at The Bruggen Glacier (also known as the Pio XI Glacier). Unfortunately, because there was quite a lot of ice in the water, the ship had to maintain a safe distance, meaning the glacier was too far away to see properly….

This morning we leapt out of bed, all enthusiastic for more glacier excitement. At about 10.30 we stopped alongside the Amalia Glacier, which is located in the Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, one of Chile’s most remote and protected areas. It forms part of the southern Patagonian Ice Field, the third…

This morning at 4 am, we were suddenly awoken by our crockery and toiletries flying off their shelves and the ship lurching left and right. On peering out of the window, although it was dark, we were greeted by a scene that looked like the Seventh Circle of Hell. We…

This morning, from 7 am until about 8.30, we completed one of marine travel’s big adventures; we sailed all around Isla Hornos (or Cape Horn). For those who didn’t know (and I didn’t), Cape Horn is actually a forbidding, barren island of magnificent solitude, located at the very southern tip…

Today we arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina, the world’s most southerly city. Ushuaia is the embarkation point for most voyages to the Antarctic and indeed there were several expedition ships in port today. It was a bitingly cold 2 degrees when we arrived but warmed up to around 4 degrees for…

Not much to report over the last couple of sea days. We’ve been taking it easy and reading our books, but the highlights were a talk by Clare Balding which was very entertaining indeed and a performance by Grammy nominated virtuoso guitarist Fabio Zini. (We’d never heard of him either…