Cruise - Take 1

Day 1 Boarding and leaving Buenos Aires.   We were given good advice and waited until after the morning rush before boarding the ship at around 1.30pm.  This was a painless and reasonably quick process so we were settled in, unpacked and ready to explore by mid-afternoon.  The following photos will give you an idea of how luxurious the ship is.

We left Buenos Aires around 5.00pm

Day 2 and 3 were entirely at sea so Meg had a great time listening to presentations, browsing the shops, going to the evening shows and taking all that is on offer on this amazing ship.  What was I doing you ask?  I was in bed with a chest infection and the only consolation was that I was not missing any of the highlights and I was well enough by Wednesday to go to Port Stanley.

We did have to come to terms with the fact that we should have booked our shore excursions online before we left.  The best ones were booked out and the ultimate best excursion from Port Stanley which was a 2 ½ hour drive to a beach where you could ‘walk among the penguins’ wasn’t even on offer and those that went had booked last November.   Meeting and talking with seasoned travellers has been a learning curve and I am sure our next cruise will be much better researched and organised.

We were also told that due to the extreme weather around Cape Horn and the Drake Passage (110km per hour winds and 9 metre waves) we would not be able to have safe passage to Antarctica.  The new itinerary would see us go directly to Falkland Islands, then cruise the Schollart Channel and Paradise Bay then on to Ushuaia on Sunday - they would add the extra port of Punta Del Este in Uraguay to compensate.

Day 4 Wednesday 19 February – Falkland Islands

Port Stanley is very historical and very English.  It had a lovely ambiance and you felt it would be easy to live and make a life there.  The locals we spoke to said it was a very easy lifestyle, no unemployment, low taxes and good wages.  The only downside appeared to be that it was expensive to go anywhere from the islands.   

We hitched a ride to Gypsy Cove but were not allowed to get off the pathways and go down to the beach where the penguins were.  Much of this part of the island still has the potential for unexploded land mines left over from the Falkland War.  We did see a group of young penguins (shedding their fluff) not far from the pathway and they were just as curious about us as we were about them.

Port Stanley only seems to go up from the port!!

Had fish and chips from the very English Pub!!

As our ship was not scheduled and there was another cruise ship in port we had to be tendered from the ship to the pier.  One of the davits used to secure the tender vessels was damaged by a local bunker barge and it took nearly all night to repair before we could get under way.  Once again we awoke to find a new itinerary in place.  So the upside is that we get to go to Antarctica again and the downside is that they have cut out the port of Puerto Madryn which is one of the two excursions we were able to book and included penguins, elephant seals and sea lions.