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.

What s rocky ride we had last night. It is very hard to walk on the ship. Apparently it was questionable if we would even stop here because of the seas and the fact we had to tender in. Getting on the tender was a bit thrilling.

On the peninsula there are only about 5000 residents in January and February when the temperatures range is 29-30C. Their summers are December to March. At other times of the year it is cold and windy …..ranging between 6-7C. It is a very secure area so much that our guide says his 16year old son might go out on a Saturday night and not come home til 3-4 in the morning and he is not worried. He says even thought it’s expensive to live here, the sense of “security is priceless”.

The peninsula is only 2 kms long

Blue church “Virgin”… 3 services per day cuz it’s the only church in town.

$2.5-3 million for house on peninsula. You can see the water in any direction.

The Rio de la Plata is 220 km wide at this point.

Graf Spee German battleship scuttled in 1939. The anchor of it is displayed along the waterfront

There are no street numbers. The address is only the “Point”, the street name and the name of house…. which every one has. Our guide says “that’s why so many postmen committed suicide”.

“Torres Imperial” is the newest condo….(3)buildings.

In some of the “good” buildings in the first 15 days of January charge you $1000/day or $15,000. Ouch!

The wind usually blows 30 kms/hr all the time but can be up to 100 kms/hr.

Trump tower has been sitting unfinished for 2 years now…… “all the workers have been sent to Mexico to build the wall”…..lol!

If you want to build a home here and you have take down trees, you are taxed to take them down. For each tree taken down, 5 must be re-planted.

Ralli museum.. no charge to enter. No art pieces can be sold till after contract to display is over. There are 5 in the world. We spent maybe 40 minutes in here taking pictures. Quite fabulous. I like some of the Dali sculptures, bronze sculptures by John Robinson and paintings by Beryl Cook.

Meislner works

It’s in the Hollywood area where properties are one acre in size… huge beautiful homes with beautiful gardens.

The Onassis home was left empty for 30 years but was sold 3 yrs ago with everything in it..

SAN Rafael very nice neighbourhood…$650,000. Then we passed by a condo building where each unit is worth $7million all with infinity pools…”Acqua”… just as we came back to beaches.

Apparently Kennedy bought large piece property here in Punta Del Este…. which was used for poor people.

Medical is free but there is a wait period much like Canada.

1/2 million people here, 2 million in Montevideo out of 4 million in the country.

$110/ metre a day to moor at the dock. Our guide says its second only to Miami in price.

There is a very famous sculpture called “La Mano” or the hand coming out of the sand. The sand by the way, is like powder. What a wonderful place but way out of our price range …. home of the rich and famous!

The return trip to the ship was really quite thrilling. So much so that we couldn’t seem to connect and stay connected to the landing ramp. Jeanette and several others made it of the tender. As I was standing waiting for the okay to go, one of the bumpers seemed to explode and a rope broke. We ended up leaving the ships landing ramp, circling around then making another attempt. The crew insisted that we all sit back down but before I got taken off (I had been first), one woman took a flying leap jumping. Shocked the crew! She could have fallen, crushed or any number of things. I think she was very panicked.

Montevideo, our first port of call…. what a shock it was to see the harbour/dock where our ship was tied up …… so many derelict sunken boats! What not to allow if you want to impress cruise passengers!

We hadn’t booked an excursion and so we just walked through the old port as far as Constitution Square. Most of the stores were closed being that it was Sunday. The whole area could be quite something but it is totally run down. My knee was nasty by the time we got back to the ship.

Some of the sunken boats in Montevideo harbour!

Old town Montevideo

One of the “better” balconies

A little scuzzy!!!

Feeding the pigeons in the park