Getting Cold in Chile

What a wonderful time we have have had visiting the beautiful cities, lovely people, amazing hidden earthly treasures, waters, and wildlife of Chile.  I knew Chile had some really nice wines, but I have loved every part of this country. 

Our amazing Captain Val, from Croatia, has shown us what a fantastic captain he really is.  He has piloted this ship for over 20 years, with the previous owners, but primarily in European waters.  He came to VVR after they bought the ship and told them he wanted the job.  He knows Odyssey inside and out and was excited to be on this new adventure. Going around the world.  There have been times when he said, “we” have reviewed the weather and have decided to alter the itinerary slightly so that the trip will be more comfortable.  Several times he has pushed us to go faster to get ahead of the weather, and most recently he chose to take us on a new adventure to avoid potentially 12-15 ft waves and 50 knots of wind.  We celebrated our 100 days at sea since leaving Belfast and I have to say, there has never been a bad day at sea, and all the passengers agree. 

The new adventure that I mentioned was our weeklong trip through the Chilean fjords.  I’ll have to admit, I didn’t really know what a fjord was, but I sort of thought they were mountains or something up around Iceland or way far north.  It turns out that the western-southern coast of Chile has hundreds and hundreds of small and large islands most of which you can’t get to, other than by boat, and even then there is no way to get on the island.  No one lives there and there is only bird wildlife.  But they are beautiful.  In the waters we did see dolphins, and one or two whales spouting and waving their tails, but I never really “saw” a whole whale.  Some days it would take us a half day to slowly motor up the waterway (the fjord) between the mountains on either side and then we would arrive at the terminus to find a huge glacier.  These glaciers have been here hundreds (maybe thousands) of years.  We know that because very old maps refer to the glacier and have been called the same name “forever”.  We would just float around for about an hour taking pictures of the hundreds of waterfalls, small & large ice chunks floating in the water, the pockets of mountain snow, and the different way the tops of the glaciers were impacted by the wind, rain and sun.  Sometimes the sun would hit a section of the glacier and the ice/snow would turn blue.  This warm weather southern girl had never seen anything like it. 

After spending a half day getting to the glacier, we would backtrack out to a main channel and mosey on to another one overnight.  Waters were a beautiful blue and smooth as glass.  Cold but beautiful.  I know my pictures will not do the area justice but what a thrill.  The third picture below is a lobster farm. It was fun to see Captain Val and his staff out on the watch stand taking pictures as they had never been there before either.  We have a huge wrap-around area at the front of Odyssey – inside, all glassed in, with comfortable chairs and a bar, called the Observatory.  It was a great place to pull out my binoculars to sit and look for waterfalls.  Absolutely stunning week. 

We left Punta Arenas on January 26, the most southern and last Chilean port we would visit.  While we were there, many of us took a tour out to see the Magellan Penguins and Cormorants (which look exactly like penguins from a distance).  But they are smaller and fly.  Mean little suckers but interesting.  We took a fast, thankfully enclosed, 45 minute shuttle ride out to the island.  It is a national Park and there are lots of Park officials to make sure you stay on the path and get no closer than 25 ft to the Penguins.  If they walk in front of you or cross your path, you are to stop and back away.   If you break the rules, the officials will walk you down to the shuttle and can fine you.  They are serious about protecting the thousands of Penguins and cormorants that live here.  The baby penguins look like a big ball of fuzzy warm fur. It takes about 2 years before they start looking like penguins. The females will use their flippers to dig holes or tunnels in the ground and then start pulling up grass to bring down in the hole to make it more comfortable, I guess. That is where they have their babies. The male Penguins will throw their beaks up in the air and start this squealing, then if their mate finds them, the male will go strut around the female 2-3 times, hump on, then saunder off.  The female just stood there looking around as if “is that all you got?”.  It was a great morning.  Penguins mate for life, usually 20+ years. 

There are sections of the island that the birds like better so there are fewer dens where the Penguins build their nest.  The birds will attack each other to protect their nest if they think another cormorant is invading “or something”.   These baby Cormorants don't look anything like their parents for about a year. Except for the fact that I had to get up at 5:00am, put on 3-4 layers of clothes, and not drink any coffee because there are no bathrooms on the island, this was a fantastic day. 

We stopped on the way back to see the Sea Lion Island.  There is no place for the boat to land and Sea Lions will attack, so we all got on top of the boat and looked at them.  Not a thrill and it was freezing cold so I went back inside quickly. 

Then we had another Sea Day.  I love Sea Days.  We are on our way to our first stop in Argentina.  Town is called Ushuaia (pronounced U Shy Ya).  But, another 100 miles or so further south and west, is Cape Horn.  Oh, I forgot to say that when we left Punta Arenas, Captain Val said the shorter way to get to Ushuaia was to go back to the Pacific and down but the weather was really ugly.  So, we took the eastern route to the Atlantic Ocean, several hours longer, but absolutely beautiful weather.  Again, Good Choice Captain.  Since the decision was made last month to not go into the Antarctic (due to weather and Odyssey not certified for that) the Captain worked to get us close enuf to get visual sighting of the rocks of Cape Horn.  The wind was actually blowing at 50 mph and as you can see, the seas were a little rough and it was COLD. But I did see Cape Horn and learned that there is one Coast Guard family (husband, wife and two young children) who are the only inhabitants on the Cape island. It is usually a one year assignment but they have now been there for over two years. They evidently like it. They get supplies once a month and use a satellite radio for all communication.

And then we  turned around and go back to Ushuaia.  This is one of the things that make this Cruise so wonderful.  We are flexible.  If something changes and residents are disappointed, then the Crew will try to make something else good happen.  You won’t see this on a big Cruise ship.  We will only be in Ushuaia for one day and then 2 Sea Days on our way to the Falkland Islands.  Weather Permitting, as always.

As Captain Val says “Smile, because a smile makes every day better”.

UPDATE: We were supposed to leave Ushuaia on 1/29, however, the weather in this part of the world can, evidently, get really nasty quickly. Upon my return from a shopping trip in town, we discovered that The Falkland Islands were no longer our next port of call. There is no dock big enough to handle our ship, so the plan was to anchor off the town of Stanley and then shuttle in to town via our life boats. We have done this once before in a small town in Chile and it was comfortable except when the winds picked up in the afternoon and the transition from lifeboat to the ship gangway was exciting! The forecast for our arrival/stay in Stanley is for 45-60 knots of wind. Captain said "Nope, that ain't happening". There is no point in traveling for 2 days thru rough weather and then not be able to get off the ship. So we are now staying here in Ushusaia for two days extra and then heading North to warmer weather. Sounds weird to say go North to get warm. But, as I said earlier, sometimes good things happen following a disappointment. Many people on the ship were really disappointed that we were not going to Antarctica. It turns out that Ushuaia is the jumping off point for almost all tours to the Antarctica. And since we are staying here a couple of extra days, the disappointed ones have been able to pick up a trip at last minute prices and then after their excursion, fly to where the Odyssey will be in 2 weeks. Most of the tours are 7-12 days and provide jackets and hoods. You provide waterproof gloves and pants and anything else you want to wear. The discounted prices are $6-9,000 per person. They are really excited at the discount price and that they actually get to go all the way to Antarctica. and step on the continent Not on my bucket list but I'm surprised at how many are jumping at this opportunity. We leave this afternoon and heading north. Three sea days. Yippee...more canasta and mexican train dominos on the horizon for me.

That's all folks.