13. You’re my morning delight!

Friday, 4 January 2019

Magellan Strait, Chile

A dose of manflu the past couple of days has been rectified by a large Drambuie and Beechams. Do not try that at home kids! Feeling fresh as a daisy now and its bettered by a WhatsApp and an email. My young(ish) German female friend is querying why there’s no blog the past few days. She’s missing the blog, “You’re my morning delight”. Another very old friend (YKW) tells me that her sister has emailed her with a request. ‘Can you ask TT not to make me late for work! Two new [blog] entries. Must go to work!’ Too much time spent reading blog. Sorry Bloss, I will do my best to make you late for work each day! So at least two people are reading this blog. Anyone else?? Please let me know via the contact form on the website or email me at: hello@touringtaurean.com. Do you want more humorous stuff or more descriptive stuff??

As it was taking 20mins to upload 100Mb of video to YouTube yesterday due to really slow wifi in the hotel and cafes, decide I’ll start to upload a file now, go and have breakfast then do the next one. Try a 250Mb file. It uploads in 5mins. Crikey. Better take advantage of that now, so spend another half hour uploading videos. Ping. Ping. Ping. Off they go.

Wifi then slows down again and all those photos took hours!

Check out of hotel and surprised to receive a laundry bill for US$156!! It would have been cheaper to buy a washing machine and do it myself!

Now for my next cruise. Spending five days cruising through Tierra del Fuego, from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia (https://www.australis.com/site/en/choose-your-trip/routes-one-way/fjords-of-tierra-del-fuego/), hopefully, nay, praying, that we’ll be able to land on Cape Horn to complete my trio of Capes (North Cape, Cape of Good Hope & Cape Horn). Check-in at 1400hrs but then have a 4hr wait to board. Sit in a draughty waiting room, typing up blog, uploading photos through sloooowww wifi. Very frustrating. It’s bang on 1800hrs when I finally publish the final Antarctic blog. Phew! The things I do for you lot!!

The ship, Stella Australis, is 200m down the pier but due to regulations we have to all jump on a bus. There’s lots of toing and froing. Substantially bigger than the brilliant Ocean Nova expedition ship I’d been on in Antarctica.

The usual Captain’s Welcome with champagne and canapes. Mandatory safety briefing which is no where as detailed as the Antarctic ship, followed by tomorrow’s planned schedule. We’re going to be busy. Like the Antarctica expedition, we’re not going to have a lot of spare time to relax. It’s another expedition cruise.

Cabin is much bigger than the Ocean Nova but I’m missing the Ocean Nova. I want to go back to Antarctica!

At check-in I’d asked to be seated at a table of English speakers. You sit at the same table throughout the voyage. Thinking that I’d be placed with American, Canadian, British, Australian people. I’m with 3 Dutch and 4 Germans. 2 from Tilburg, 1 from Nijmegen. 2 from Stuttgart. 2 from Munich. Fortunately, they speak really good English and understand my humour. I know, I know, it’s a warped sense of humour.

Having lived and worked in both the Netherlands and Germany for a number of years, I know how friendly and fun the Dutch and Germans can be. The table is no exception. We are Table 8. Good craic. Mr German Chemist used to work on the same chemical facility as I did in Frankfurt a few years ago. His wife, Mrs German Chemist, asks what I do. Time for my best German. The nearest equivalent to what I do is, ‘Bau Kosten Beratung und Bau vertrag’. She retorts with, “Ah, so you’re a Quantity Surveyor!” Blimey. Someone who knows what I do! That’s a first. Not even my friends know what I do. I’m the Chandler Bing of my group of friends. When at Trent Polytechnic, way back when, our lecturer always said, “Whenever you’re at a party and someone asks what you do, never, ever, tell them you’re a Quantity Surveyor. The next question will be, ‘what do they do?’”. Her friend, coincidentally, is a British QS as well.

It’s only when I order a nightcap at the bar that I realise that all drinks are included. This is my kind of cruise!

Cross the Strait of Magellan. It’s not calm seas but it’s not rough either. But you can tell we’re rocking and rolling.

After a few days of R&R from my Antarctic exploits, time for a recap. It was an epic journey and whilst I realise that most will never be able to make it down there, for those that do have the time and resources to afford the luxury of such a trip, I simply say this, go! You will never regret it. The single best experience of my travelling life. Before I departed, a friend joked, “What are you going to see? A few penguins and a lot of snow?” It’s more than that. It’s the experience. The sights and the sounds. The scale of the place is off the charts. The air is the freshest, cleanest, air you will ever breathe. The consequence of which is that you will sleep like a log! It’s a detox for the mind and soul.

Life on board the Ocean Nova was excellent. Mornings began with the wake up call of the dulcet Swedish tones of the expedition leader, “My dear expedition travellers…”, followed by breakfast, morning shore excursion, lunch, afternoon nap or a very interesting lecture by one of the guides or scientists on board, afternoon shore excursion, evening recap and briefing for the following day, dinner, bar, sleep. I’ve never known a group of tour guides so happy with their lot but having experienced Antarctica I understand why.

Antarctica puts a smile on your face!