Punta Arenas

I awoke at 6:00 to be in good time for meeting up for my tour at 6:50. I went to the Lido for breakfast, and was lucky enough to see the most beautiful sunrise. A great start to the day.

At 6:40 I went down to the Queens Room and it was deserted. I panicked. How could I have got things so wrong? Luckily a man behind me pointed out that we were meeting in the Royal Court Theatre, so all was not lost. I hurried there and got my sticker, found a good seat, and waited. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally at 7:30 the Commodore announced his apologies that the authorities had still not cleared the ship, so no one could go ashore just yet. He also reminded everyone that we would need our Chilean customs declaration forms with us in order to go ashore. I smugly glanced at mine in my bag, but then half the people left the theater in a panic. Clearly they had not brought theirs along. Luckily for those passengers who had misplaced their forms the tour staff had extra ones on hand. Soon the whole customs form issue was settled, but we continued to wait and wait. Finally at 8:30 the Commodore announced that the ship had been cleared and we could head off on our tours. Yay!

It was a smooth ride in the tender to the cruise terminal. There was no marching band or dancing girls to welcome us, but there were dolphins and fin whales, which I think is actually better. It was definitely quite chilly, but we are in Chile! At the cruise terminal we had to go through security, but no one asked for the customs forms. We climbed on to our coach, and headed to the ferry dock, a short ride away.

When we got there I thought our ferry was nowhere in sight, there was only a derelict car ferry there. I was wrong, the car ferry was our ferry, and we were herded on to her. As we boarded we were given bags containing our packed lunch. We climbed up the steep staircases to stake our claims on the crowded bench seats, and I headed out on deck along with the masses to take photos. Photography complete, I returned indoors and settled in for the 2 hour trip to Magdalena Island to meet the Magellan penguins. During our trip over there they showed videos of the wild life in this area, and the time passed very quickly.

Finally we there, and so were the penguins, hundreds of the little creatures. I was bursting with excitement, and couldn’t wait to go ashore. We had one hour to enjoy being on the island and I loved every minute of it. Most of the penguins seemed to be having an afternoon nap, as they are certainly entitled to, so were not at their most photogenic, but I still managed to take loads of photos. It was a magical time, and I was reluctant to embark back on the old rust bucket again. However, the packed lunch was calling, so I headed back to the ferry.

The wind had increased quite a bit, and our ride back was quite a bumpy one. Back at the cruise terminal I looked at the shops. There was no ATM or currency exchange, but there was free wifi. The shops had some quite nice souvenirs. There were woolen gloves and capes, fur hats, the inevitable T shirts, and assorted penguins. I had wanted to take a penguin home as a souvenir, but they all looked exceedingly disgruntled, and I didn’t want an unhappy penguin, so I resisted the urge to purchase one, and headed back to the tender.

Brian was still away on his Andean trek when I got back to the ship, so I went and had tea, and then returned to the cabin to wait for him. A few minutes later the Commodore announced that there was a fire on deck 5, stairwell C. That didn’t sound too good, but some time later he announced that everything was under control, and it was just a problem with the ventilation system. Nothing to worry about.

Brian returned, and as it was very cold and windy by then, we decided to watch the sail away from the warmth and shelter of our cabin. Whales were sighted again, but we didn’t see them unfortunately.

We went to the Commodore Club for pre dinner drinks with Adam, the computer manager. By that time we were going through quite a narrow channel, so we had a lovely time sitting back and talking, and watching the mountains on either side of us.

We continued in the channel while we were in the restaurant, and as sunset isn’t until 9:30, we had great views during dinner.

After dinner Ann and Keith joined us in the Queens Room for dancing to Abba and 70s music, and the balloon drop. I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get a seat, but as it turned out there were very few people there, and not much in the way of Abba music being played. It was a huge disappointment. We had a few dances, but by then there were about the only people there, and there was really no atmosphere at all, so we decided to call it a night and head back to the cabin.

When we got back to the cabin, our world cruise gift for this segment was waiting – a pair of binoculars. I am ever hopeful that there will be a world cruise scarf, but the binoculars are OK, especially as we will be viewing glaciers tomorrow, and may see a whale or two.

The Commodore had warned us that we would be facing gale force winds and very rough weather from 3:00 AM to 10:00 AM, and to prepare our cabins accordingly. We put the plant into the rubbish bin for safety, and placed everything out of danger’s way, and settled in for what we hoped would be a bumpy night.