I found that this post was just sitting, that it had failed to send. Sorry for the mix-up!

We have been at sea for 2 days… and what a rocky ride! Lots of people… passengers and crew, are sea sick. I’ve never been seasick in my life but I certainly was feeling queasy. Since our arrival back on board in Punta Del Este, our porthole “windows” have been shut as a precaution. Personally I would like to be able to see out. It really has been rough…. difficult to walk without looking totally drunk.

This port area has very little except the docks but the fiords in and around are just gorgeous.

There are 15 “districts”. This is 11th.

Lots of Germans came here for logging. Only one person per sq. kilometre

Lake Riesco…..

The first hatchery is for research not commercial.

16 today but will go to 28 in next couple of days

3000-4000 mm rain/yr….. flooded last couple days. People couldn’t come out of their homes. Inland it drops to 600mm.

A bird called a Chucao is a hopper & a beautiful singer.

Lots of Gunnera growing..called “Nalca” here. They eat the stalk.. like rhubarb. They also make drink like pisco sour with it.

Califate bush…. purple fruit ….yellow flower… if you eat it it is said you will come back.

Arrayan tree…”Luma apiculata” most common… trunk looks arbutus… consumes lots of water so it’s colder to touch.

Wet wet bird….

Quilla looks like bamboo “colihue”… not hollow. Every 15 years blooms… bring many mice.

Final destination on our walk was a spectacular waterfall call the”Old Man’s Beard” but in Spanish.

White flowers… luma plant.

Quienhco… gathering of friends… bbq, drinks. Had a lamb bbq-4 hours cooking….. fire pit in the middle.

I am not having much success downloading pictures. I will try later.

Windiest place in world… 30% time in winter gale force …called the ”furious fifties”

It’s 800 kms between SAmerica and Antarctic….Drake Passage.

Magellan passage (Puna Arenas is … calmer but much narrower than the open waters of Drake passage.

On March 5/19 we watched a very primitive video taken in 1929 by the man who later narrated it. It was called “The Peking Battles Cape Horn”. If you get the opportunity to watch it, I recommend that you do. It is truly amazing and really quite humorous.

To travel from the Atlantic side to the Pacific around the Cape is considered the wrong way because you would be fighting the prevailing winds…. very difficult considering you would have to tack into it…, no motors on board.

The Peking was a 17 stories high sailing ship from Hamburg. It was sent to pick up nitrates from Chile.

90% of the ice fields are in Antartica, 7% Greenland and 2% in the rest of world.

While travelling through more of the Chilean fiords, the Amalia Glacier, at first we couldn’t see because of clouds. But then it finally came into view. Amalia Glacier is about 3 kilometres wide. They lowered one of the boats into the sea to collect a “bergie” and hoisted it up for display in “Horizons”.

Sometime later we sailed by the Asia Glacier. Magnificent!

Through the Chilean Fiords

Amalia Glacier

Asia Glacier

Yours truly at Asia Glacier

“Bergie” bits

Jeanette and Marilyn went kayaking (I didn’t want to go for any unscheduled dips in the ocean seeing as it was a little windy. That was my excuse) so Linda and I just walked around the city. It is really quite a large city but in my opinion, has no redeeming qualities. The only thing that is quite nice is the park in the downtown area that has a fabulous statue of Magellan and some crew. One of the crew has very shiny toes from everyone rubbing it (if you do you will return to Punta Arenas). Also…. we went to the “cemetario”. Wow…. lots of lovely mausoleums!

Welcome to Punta Arenas and the straits of Magellan

Rubbing the toes

Later in the evening us 4 gals and 2 couples from California Margaret and Charlie and Don and Kathrine met for dinner in Tuscan Steak in celebration of my birthday. We had champagne (thank you M&C), saw a great show in the lounge and later when returning to our room, found a card from Oceania, 5 balloons and a towel “dog” with 2 chocolate eyes. Nice!

Me & Charlie… my b’day cake

Don and Katherine

On route to Punta Arenas…Chilean Fiords

We are at 55 minutes south in the “Southern Ocean” on relatively calm day unlike the first time our lecturer was here……18 metre or 60 foot seas…..OMG… I can’t imagine that!

Ocean is 100 metres deep below us.

La Boreal and Zaandam, 2 other ships are here besides us. The sun rise was gorgeous but the Isla Hornos was shrouded in cloud. Apparently there is a sculpture (which we could not see) made of 2 pieces but together look like an albatross. BTW they are quite huge…. too hard to get a picture of.

It was about 9C but the wind came up out of nowhere and so did the swells. The captain didn’t want the ship hanging around cuz there was a “low” coming our way so he got us on our way.

Cloud shrouded Isla Hornos

Imperial or “blue-eyed cormorants were the first we stopped to see on our way to see penguins. We were travelling by catamaran.

Cormorants

There are Skuas… an aggressive bird that steals food from the cormorants. Petrals are also aggressive … brown.

The first we saw were South America Fur Seals…. max out at 300 kilos for males and 200 females. One alpha male has a haram … one pup per year for each female. The first group were called fur seals but are actually sea lions. These had a pointy snout, the second group were sea lions too but have a pushed in nose.

This second group of sea lion males weight in between 350-400 kilos.

Isn’t this one cute???

Lighthouse at entrance to Ushuaia Bay. … Les Eclaireurs.

They harvest King Crab here.

Well we saw mostly Magellanic (Ma’gell an’ ic) … the chicks are born in January. There were a few Gentoos…. their chicks are born the beginning of December….. are more territorial. Both are migratory. Gentoos go to same nest year after year.

Magellanic

The boat took us as far as Harberton where a whole lot of people were dropped off.

After stopping in

The Falklands (also known as the Malvinas. There were signs in Ushuaia that referred to it as the capital of the Malvinas. Argentina obviously doesn’t agree that they lost the war), this tour was quite a disappointment. It was a long boat ride without seeing all that much wildlife.

Ushuaia…. looks somewhat like North Van

Ushuaia itself is quite large with a major prison. The city of 65-75,000 is built on the side of the mountains and doesn’t look dissimilar to North Vancouver. Note the very defined tree line. The mountains on either side of the Beagle Channel are rugged and steep… coming right down to the waters edge…., kind of reminded us of the coast of B.C.

Cool sculpture at waterfront in Ushuaia

Definitely a smoother ride in on the tender. Picked up in 4 x4 driven by Amy who helps to operate her family’s farm (43,000 acres.. 8000 sheep,100 head of cattle) to where we are going. The topography is low rise… totally devoid of trees, barren….. lots and lots of rock… all glacial. Along the route…. in a caravan of 6 vehicle, there was a boot graveyard…. boots left by people that are leaving the islands for good.

There are miles and miles of nothingness. The total area of the Falklands is 4700 square miles actually….. much bigger than we expected.

At the first stop near Seal Bay, we saw a colony of rock hopper penguins…all juveniles… adults are out to sea. They were all living together with a huge number of imperial cormorants. So so cute with their yellow “eyebrows” and red eyes. Brrrr …..it’s friggin’ freezing!!

Cormorant

Next was Magellanic penguins…. they have stripe or bib .. live in holes in ground. They look very similar to the ones we saw last year in South Africa… but bigger. And Gentoo penguins. They apparently are the fastest swimmers of the all the penguins….. have orange beaks and feet.

Gentoos

Next there were a couple of King Penguins. It was like they’d done this many times before…. just patiently posed for us all. They are so majestic and “proper”. Beautiful.!

King Penguins…. aren’t they gorgeous!

The only vegetation that you see in this barren land is Diddledee.. a ground shrub somewhat like heather but with little red berries…. also a little green scrub that has tiny white flowers and not much else.

We drove through a lake to get to our lunch on the beach. The drivers had done this many times before … did some donuts showing off but I think all of us were shocked when we started into it.

We didn’t see much livestock…. some sheep, one small herd of cattle, some geese…. nothing else (besides the penguins). There are no predators….. nothing!

On way back it was 5C plus wind which probably brought it down below freezing.

It was totally terrific to see all these penguins but omg….. such an extremely long ride there and back… maybe 2.5-3 hours in either direction. Too too long…… with a whole lot of nothingness! I think we all agreed that we would NEVER want to live here.