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Published: February 20th 2017
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Harsh Terrain
along Chile's southern coast Today we spent cruising – sometimes in the protected passages (down here they call them canals) and sometimes out in the ocean. Last night we had a bumpy patch according to Janet, but it did not seem to wake up David. We did get up early this morning to see the glacier, but it didn’t actually occur until about 7:45. Unfortunately it often is overcast in these parts and we got a fairly typical day – cloudy.
Anyway, we moved slowly down the “canal” which ends with the Amalia Glacier. It was pretty neat to see but the ship was a lot further from the glacier than it is during an Alaskan cruise. But the ship crept up to the point of “best viewing” and we were able to see it all from the convenience of our balcony. Since this passage is surrounded by mountains the winds were barely noticeable and we only needed sweatshirts to watch it in comfort. David took a lot of pictures and we’ll try to get something included in the blog.
The ship spent about 30 minutes here and then performed a slow 180 degree turn for the other balconies
to see before we chugged back down the canal. That was our queue to go get some breakfast in the Horizon Court, except most of the rest of the ship took that same queue too. But we had breakfast and pretty much had the rest of the day for ourselves.
Janet went to the Knitters & Knatters group and worked on her needle projects. David went to the Personal Improvement lecture on e-mail safety and then stayed for the Port Lecture on our stop on Tuesday (Monday’s stop was covered in the lecture he attended yesterday).
We met back at the cabin about noon and then went to the Pizzeria for some pepperoni pizza (Patterson’s favorite food). By this time we had gotten back out into the wind so eating lunch on-deck was not feasible. We found a table inside and had a simple but filling lunch – followed of course by a little dessert. Then we went back to the cabin and decided to each take a nap.
The scenery all along this southern stretch of Chile’s coast can best be described as “harsh”. It wasn’t especially cold today (during
Viewing the Glacier
from the ship's balconies their summer) but it only got as high as about 54. However there are still quite a few mountains which are still snow-capped and those exposed to the winds are mostly rock faces. In the canals there were frequent sections of naturally growing trees (looked like pine trees from our distance view). We only saw one sign of other human life (some small fishing boats tied up at shore) all day. Tomorrow we will stop at in city but there were no buildings in sight anywhere today. Maybe on a bright sunny day the land might look more hospitable, but those days seem to be fairly rare. Anyway we cruised south along the coast most of the afternoon, even if we dozed through part of it.
We ventured up to the 18
th deck for the Skywalker Nightclub (I’m been mistakenly calling it Stargazer Lounge). Anyway, this evening the featured appetizer was Blue Stilton cheeses, which David really likes. They had other cheeses and veggies, and it was a nice pre-dinner session. Then we went to the dining room. Janet had Shrimp Cocktail and Beef Stroganoff. David had the Black Bean Soup and a bowl of Gazpacho along
with the Stroganoff. For dessert we each had Viennese Apple Strudel a la mode.
During dinner we finished sailing about 75 miles in the open ocean and the ship turned west into the Estrecho de Magallanes (known to us as the Straights of Magellan). This is an inland passageway between the Atlantic and the Pacific. This passage cuts off about 200 sea-miles for ships rather than going all the way around the tip of Cape Horn, and would have spared those early sailors from a very difficult passage. For our ship it means smoother sailing again and should be all through the night. It also leads us to tomorrow’s port city.
After dinner we went to the Princess Theater for the show. Janet went ahead and got us some seats while David stayed in the Piazza and watched a little of the dancing demonstration. This was a couple doing Tango. There had been a show during the afternoon but we missed that one. Anyway, they were good. The performer in the theater was the same singer/instrumentalist which David had seen two nights ago. He played new songs and all the instruments as before, except
for the harmonica. It seemed louder this evening, but we enjoyed it anyway.
Finally we want to say Happy Birthday to Janet’s sister – Kathy Siebert. With everything going on in their house we didn’t want her birthday to get overlooked (at least here in the blog).
Warning: There should be 7 pictures tonight, but that’s about all for today.
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Jerry and Joyce
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Photos!
Love the pictures of the rugged coast, beautiful glacier, Janets knitting group and the tango couple. Life on a cruise ship......