Antarctica Day 2

The day stayed very cold but there were patches of sun that would peak through the clouds giving us some very interesting lighting for photography. We went by many icebergs of all sizes; bergy bits, growlers to huge tabular icebergs and ones with the wonderful shapes and caves. We saw whales, seals, penguins and many types of birds.

We made it into Paradise Bay and saw the Chilean Base and the Argentinean Almirante Brown Base where we landed before. There was an expedition ship doing landings at Almirante Brown and you can see the people up on the hill. This is the hill that Jim and most of the others in our group climbed and then slid down on their bottoms - great fun for adults that don’t do that kind of stuff much these days. It looks considerably different with much of the snow melted but we could easily see penguins everywhere from the ship.

We cruised for a couple more hours and then reached Cuverville Island at about 12:30 pm. Here the snow and ice had also melted back considerably in the couple months and we could see literally thousands of penguins on the land and in the water around the ship. The Captain was able to get the ship very close here and actually spun the ship around so both sides and the aft could have a nice view. Very soon after we left Cuverville Island the fog descended and you couldn’t see anything… time for lunch and a nap while the ship headed toward Deception Island. I had thought we would be able to go into the caldera of the island, but Prinsendam is too big.

At about 4:00pm the Captain came on the speakers and announced that since the heat and hot water had been out all morning he was giving everyone a free bar for 1 hour prior to dinner; a very nice gesture since the ship did get quite chilly! Jim and I went to Explorers Lounge and had our free cocktail (his usual Jack and I had an Irish Coffee) then headed to the Lido for dinner. At about 7:30 we arrived at Deception Island - the tour guide announced it on the speakers and said “it’s out there, we can see it on radar“… but all we could see was fog. Suddenly the fog lifted enough that we could see the entrance called Neptune’s Bellows - mother nature seems to like Prinsendam. We made a circle around the island and the fog stayed up enough for us to see the whole thing, but not to the top of the hills. Shortly after that we headed to bed.

Antarctica - day 1

Wow, blue skies - you couldn’t ask for a better day. We were slightly delayed in reaching our first scenic cruising location, the approach to Palmer Station, but when we arrived a little after noon it was bright and sunny. About a dozen people from the American base came out to the ship in zodiacs to give presentations and have a meal and nice hot showers. Holland America has an agreement with them and it works well for both parties. It was fun seeing the zodiacs approach the ship and really helped put what we were seeing into size perspective. After seeing the zodiacs up close it really showed how special the Polar Cirkel boats we had on MS Fram were - ours were semi-rigid sided and had actual seats and a rail down the center to hold on to and a rail at the front of the boat that really helped when you were getting in and out. Most people were along the side rails on Deck 4 or on one of the exposed front decks… I’m a wimp, I parked myself on the back deck outside the lido. It was much warmer as I was pretty much out of the wind and much of the time I was in the sun. I really didn’t care that I saw where we have been rather than where we were going. The guy in the hot tub was on the deck below and if I weren’t such a camera nut, I’d have probably been there too… great way to see the Antarctic! After the sun went down at about 9:30 it got really cold really quick so we gave up and went back to the cabin… and missed the golden light. Watching out the window the light was so beautiful on two icebergs that Jim ran upstairs to get it, but pretty much missed it.

This morning we are sitting in the very back of the lido watching out the aft windows and running out to the back deck when there are shots… it’s gray and cold. The sun does break through every once in a while and make some marvelous shots. We are in Deception Bay and just passed Almirante Brown Base where we landed before. There was an Expedition ship anchored there and we could see the people up on the hill that Jim climbed and slid down on the snow.

We’ve seen a number of penguins in the water along with several kinds of seals and a number of different birds. The picture at the bottom shows penguins (tiny black dots) on the land taken with my 400 zoom so I am really glad we had the chance to see them up close on Fram!!!

Ushuaia

When we arrived in Ushuaia the skies were sort of mixed, clouds and rain. We waited about a half hour and then walked into town (taking the umbrella). We hadn’t had time to see any of the town when we were there in December so we wandered around a bit and looked in the souvenir shops. Then we stopped in an Irish Pub and had an Irish coffee… tasted really good. We shopped in a couple leather shops and I bought a new belt and a really cute fur jacket that’s also really warm!

The Valentine’s Day ball was held last night after we left Ushuaia even though it was only the 13th. The Captain decided to hold it when the seas would be relatively calm instead of chancing the Drake passage which we would be in tonight. They decorated the Showroom at Sea (yes, it used to be the Queen’s Lounge) with red and pink and white balloons and streamers… it looked really cute.

This morning (Sunday) Jim got up at about 6:00 to see Cape Horn. We were just rounding the Horn as he headed out to get some pictures. I was a bit too lazy to get out of the nice warm bed and I settled for seeing it out the window and on TV from the Bridge Camera. Smooth seas and almost cloudless skies! The picture doesn't look like blue skies, but it really was that way... this cloud just happened to be in the picture. It was beautiful and almost unheard of weather. The Captain was able to completely circle Isla Horne before we turned south to continue on into the Drake Passage on our way to Antarctica. Right now we are having Drake Lake… a far different experience from our southbound passage two months ago! Keep your fingers crossed for us for good weather! I would love to have some blue skies while we are doing the scenic cruising in Antarctica since we had gray skies most of the time on the last trip.

I’ve forgotten to mention that on many of the evenings the waiters are dressed in theme costumes. Last night for the Valentine formal night they had on red vests with red bow ties and today for he Chinese New Year they are in Chinese costumes. The ship decorates for each occasion…some more than others.

Punta Arenas, Chile

Friday we were docked in Punta Arenas. We had booked and early excursion to Magdalena Island to see the penguins - we had to be in the showroom at 7:30 for it. We had a short bus ride to the ferry and then a 90 minute ferry ride out to the island. I’ve never seen a ferry boat quite like this one. It had a vehicle ramp on one side and a long skinny cabin along the other - about the width of a train car. During the ride we went in and out of rain, but had no rain while we were on the island.

Penguins, penguins, penguins… thousands of them. These were Megellan penguins, a variety we hadn’t seen before. They are in the end stage of the molt so some were already in their new feathers and able to go into the water and others were still molting with patches of feathers on their bodies. You could still pick out the young ones even though they are now the same size as the adults, but the feathers they are shedding have a brownish color to them. Instead of making rock nests like the penguins in the Antarctic, these dig burrows into the ground.

Our hour on the island went by much too quickly, but I managed to shoot about 350 pictures. I almost forgot, there is a large lighthouse at the top of the island and many of the people walked up to it. It was lovely… but I spent my time down near the shoreline with my little penguin friends.

Holland America did not give out the Antarctic jackets as they have in the past and a number of the passengers are quite upset as they had planned on them. I had also thought we would be getting them, but realized that we hadn’t been asked for our size request so I purchased a heavy hooded sweater in Ecuador - it’s proved to have been a good purchase!

This morning (Saturday) we passed several big glaciers on our way to Ushuaia. They were spectacular… and would have been even more so if we had had a little bit nicer sky. The subdued light is good to bring out the details of the glacier… but I don’t think you can beat photos with blue skies. We will dock in Ushuaia in a couple hours - it’s trivia time. More later.
Pictires soon - trouble connecting

Fjords of Chile

We have been sailing down through the fjords for the last two days.  It is very beautiful, but the skies are gray, misty and sometimes rainy.  My photos are pretty 'gray' so I won't post any yet.  I'm hoping I can photoshop them a bit when we get home to pop the colors out of the gray.

Tomorrow we will be in Puenta Arenas... penguins.  Internet may become spotty so I'll post as I can until we are back out of the Antarctic..

Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Tuesday- We are in Puerto Chacabuco, Chile. We are now in the Chilean Fjords. It is very beautiful even if it is gray, misty and raining. We came into the inside passage area during the night so when we woke up this morning about 7:00 we could see the islands all around the ship. We were moving along very slowly and by 9:00 had arrived at our anchorage off Puerto Chacabuco. Frank (the onboard tour guide) had told us that there is nothing to do in this port unless you were on a tour… over 400 people did go on tours so they restricted the tenders until about 10:30 to get all the tours off before they opened them to passengers going in on their own. Since it is cold and raining, we decided not to go ashore and have enjoyed a very quiet day on the ship. It is very beautiful outside and when the sun breaks through the clouds for a few minutes it is spectacular. Now if mother nature will be nice to us and give us blue skies… we have three days of scenic cruising ahead before our next port.


The Captain just made his announcements prior to leaving port - he said there was a big storm in the Pacific and that it would be very rough tonight as we will go back out there and then south before we re-enter the fjords about 7:00 in the morning.

Random Thoughts:

The plumber finally fixed the water pressure problem in our cabin on Sunday and now we actually have enough water coming out of the shower head to take a real shower!! Our cabin has a full sized tub, but I haven’t been able to fill it to take a bath. I tried one night and after an hour I had 3 inches of water in the tub so I gave up on the idea of a nice soak and just had a quick bath.

Although all of the crew is happy and smiling and friendly as they have always been on Holland America, I’m not sure how they actually keep it up - they have to be exhausted especially with the illness problem we had where the crew had to work many extra duties. The cutbacks are noticeable; the stewards seem to have to tend too many cabins and the waiters wait too many tables - service is just much slower than it was a few years ago. I guess if people insist on these low prices, something must go and it is beginning to show. If you have never cruised before you wouldn’t notice anything, but if you have been on HAL for 10 (or so) years as we and many many passengers on this cruise have, we all notice it. One passenger summed it up perfectly, it seems that the crew/staff are reactive instead of proactive.

After saying all that, it really is a great cruise and the ship is just the size I like. She is easy to get around and there is never a line to wait for anything. I’d have no problem being one of the little old ladies that lives onboard the ship. I haven’t heard of any actually doing that on this ship as there have been on several of our other cruises. Maybe they need a mascot ‘little old lady’…. hmmm I might apply!

Puerto Montt

Sunday night was Superbowl night on the ship - they had it in the cabins and also on the three screens in the Showroom at sea and in the Explorations Café. I watched the first half, but since we had a tour in the morning I went to bed at about 10:15 - Jim watched it all. Since we were pulling for New Orleans I’m sorry I didn’t see all of it. They had the showroom decorated for both teams and a ‘Tailgate Zone’ set up with munchies.

Monday we anchored at Puerto Montt. We had what might have been the best ship tour we have ever taken. We first went to a small town and had an hour to wander around and shop for handicrafts. It was lovely and very Bavarian-feeling - much German influence there. We walked a few blocks to a church up on a hill, took a few pictures and then headed down to the craft market near the bus.

After that we headed to a ranch called a fundo which is smaller than an estancia. It was a working horse ranch and we were treated to some folkloric dances by some children and then the cowboys (called huachos) did a rodeo type show. It was very well done, but we had to watch in from inside the dining room as it had started raining. This area gets about 10 feet of rain each year so they were well prepared for this. There were musicians playing traditional local instruments and singing. One of the dancers was a little boy, much younger than the rest of them… he totally stole the show! We were served wine and appetizers and then a full lunch with more wine and then dessert and a cordial… it could have been nap time on the way back to the ship, but we were only about 15 minutes from the port so there really wasn’t time.

It was dinner time not long after returning on the tender, but we weren’t hungry… we decided to have dessert and coffee. Then we went to the Crows Nest to listen to Buddy on the piano for about an hour. They off to bed… I think we only read about 15 minutes and we were ready for sleep.