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Published: February 16th 2010
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Ushuaia
A summer day in Ushuaia -- notice how people are dressed Ushuaia, Argentina
Saturday, February 5, 2010
Most of the tour activity in Ushuaia focuses on visiting Tierra Del Fuego National Park or visiting penguins. (Penguins are a really big thing in this corner of the world). We visited this area in 2003 so opted to pass on organized touring. The Ushuaia cruise ship dock is right in town so a stroll through the tourist area was the order of the day.
We depart here for our time in Antarctica. There was a Celebrity ship in port with us; they have been waiting two days for weather to clear so they can get to Antarctica. Hopefully, we will have better luck.
Antarctica, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday, February 7, 8 and 9, 2010
Taking a cruise ship to Antarctic is no small endeavor. It includes complex application and agreement to abide by lengthy regulations including that we remove EVERYTHING we bring or generate while there. This includes waste product. We had to hire an Ice Captain and have a Expedition leader who in addition to assuring that we “behave” must also report animal and geological sitings.
Each passenger had to sign acknowledgement that there was no health
Iceberg in Antarctica
This ship is 709 feet long and seven stories above the water line. We saw icebergs (remember the rule of thumb is that only 10 of an iceberg is out of the water) that dwarfed the ship care available and sign agreement to comply with the Antarctic Treating (which includes 16 “do-nots” and six ‘dos”). After all that, we cannot disembark.
Our visit was to include scenic cruising in three specific areas with three alternate areas available to us if necessary. The weather was so bad that plans had to be changed such that we were only able to visit Elephant Island.
We did luck out with beautiful weather on Tuesday and we saw many astonishing icebergs. Quite an experience.
Port Stanley, Falkland Islands
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Town of Port Stanley has grown quite a bit since our 2003 visit. There are now about 4000 people living here. Wool farming which in 2003 was a significant product on this island is no longer profitable according to our guide. Consequently people have left the farms and moved into Port Stanley.
Currently the Falkland Islands are preparing to start drilling the first of 10 off shore oil wells. This enterprise is expected to an economic windfall to the Falklands. During the time of our visit, Argentina blocks the cargo ship which was transporting oil drilling equipment. Tensions continue to run high between
Impossible to Describe
The size of the icebergs is almost inconcievable. these two countries.
The war with Argentina was in 1982, but removal of the many land mines has only begun in the last year. The plan is to locate and explode the land mines in situ….unfortunately last week there was a bit of a mishap so work has been suspended for a few days until the procedure can be reworked.
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Sunday, February 14, 2010
This town of about 100,000 people is long and narrow, adhering to the Atlantic coast. It contributes its existence to fishing, an aluminum plant and tourism. The nearby communities of Trelew and Gaiman were settled by Welch immigrants in the mid 1800s.
The Welch influence is evident in both culture and history: many streets and parks have Welch names, there is a “Welch school” in each community and many locals today speak both Welch and Spanish.
Today’s tour was a visit to the village (2500 people) of Gaiman where we visited a Welch tea house & garden and were entertained by a Welch choir.
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Lenni
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Antartica
I hope you were not too disappointed missing a lot of your time in Antartica. The one iceberg looks amazing! I'm sure the lectures are very interesting on board. Have a great week and Valentine hugs to you both! ~Lenni