Around Cape Horn, Patagonia

We cruised through the Strait of Magellan and then headed south to go around the southern most tip of South America at Cape Horn. The water was calm on the way to the cape and we had gorgeous sunny weather. We saw some killer whales in the water and watched the mountains roll by. The food was great, served family style. The Englishmen made fun of my American style eating manners so I started to eat like an Englishman making fun of balancing peas on the back of a fork and holding my pinkie finger up in the air like the Queen. We all got a laugh out of it. We talked mostly about world politics but I think we talked about just about every topic known to mankind during the week on board. Our first stop was at Cape Horn the next morning.

We put our life jackets and raincoats on then climbed into the little orange inflatable launches for the ride to Cape Horn. It was a climb up a lot of slippery stairs to get to the top of the island, then a hike to walk around and see the monument to the lost sailors, the chapel, views and the light house on the island. The wind was blowing hard as we hiked around and I was glad to be wearing the heavy duty rain gear to keep out the cold wet wind. After a few hours we climbed back down to our inflatables and went back to the ship.

As we rounded the cape the seas suddenly increased in size and intensity. Our large ship was suddenly rolling and tossing the furniture around along with us passengers. Quite a few passengers and some staff got seasick from the motion. We were only out in the rough waters for about a half an hour before we reentered the calm protected waters of the straits again. The crew fixed all the furniture again as we entered the calm water and told us the rest of the trip should be flat calm except for one ten minute stretch around midnight or one o'clock in the morning that night. We watched movies, hung out in the chairs, at the bar or in our cabins during the cruise to our next stop which was going to be an island with penguins breeding on it. I went to bed early that night because I was having some pain problems. Just like we were warned, around 12:30 in the morning we hit some rough water. Way rougher than we were told, the big ship lurched sideways and rolled as my bed went flying across my cabin and I was thrown right out of it against the wall and onto the floor. They had not warned us it would be that bad and an assembly alarm sounded. All the passengers had to assemble to make sure nobody was injured. Several people were slightly injured but just with bruises and stuff. There were no broken bones but a little bit of blood from cuts on some passengers. The crew treated us and apologized for the sudden rouge wave that hit us. We went back to bed afterward. I had a few drinks at the bar first.

After breakfast we again loaded into our inflatables and headed to the island to check out the penguins. A huge wave of penguins was leaving the island just as we arrived so we only got to see the stragglers. Our guides told us that the majority had just left for the season and the penguins still left on the island would likely all perish. For various reasons they were not ready for the long swim to their next stopping point. It could be that they were born too late or their feathers did not grow fast enough or for whatever reason but they were left behind. We took some pictures of their nesting holes in the ground and some pics of the remaining penguins. They were totally unafraid of us and totally ignored our being there with our cameras and stuff. I think some of them were posing for us.

After the penguins our next several stops were all glaciers. We saw all different types of glaciers from clear blue ones to dirty blue ones. Most of the glaciers came down from the mountains right into the sea but some of them had receded up into the mountains a bit and had waterfalls pouring out and off of them. The blue color really stood out against the gray color of the weather we encountered. We hiked up to and onto the glaciers along the Avenue of the Glaciers. There was fjord after fjord along the way, all of them gorgeous.

I was hanging out with a French girl for my partner on the excursions. We hung out together on the ship a lot also. She spoke no English so we used some Spanish and some French to communicate, or we just used body language. She did not like the English people on board for some reason and they did not like her much either. The English kept calling her your pet and your ducky and similar names. I just ignored them and enjoyed the trip tremendously.