Toni and Janie's Blog

14th posting on Jan. 17, 2014 ..... Back to the welcome page and listings for other links

We sailed up a channel where glaciers come right down to the water from 5000 ft peaks! I had been to the gym and ended out on the promenade deck with just shorts & shirt/sweatshirt. Froze my ----- off but it was too spectacular to go inside! Toni was the smart one and saw them from our cabin. The promenade deck is the deck that goes all the way around the ship. 4 times around is a mile. The crew was giving out pea soup to warm people up...Yuk.

We are at the bottom of the world! docked into Ushuaia at 1 pm yesterday then off onto a large catamaran for a nice ride up the Beagle Channel. Great bird life and seals on scattered islands. No more penguins for a few days. So cool that this is the very area that Darwin sailed up on the M.S.S. Beagle! We sailed up the Beagle channel into the entrance of the Tierra Del Fuego Natl park where the Pan American highway finally ends after the start in Alaska. Tons of beech trees in park and bunches of green stuff they call false mistletoe. Small deer and red fox abound and big fly fishing in streams. Black neck swans on lake also.

We had East & West views of Cape Horn on a spectacularly clear day. And the weather down here (that can be so horribly treacherous) was calm as an inland lake! We can now "put one foot up on the table" and say we rounded Cape Horn. Also you can have an extra ear piercing because that is the way we passed Cape Horn------the left ear toward the Cape. These are tales from old sailing traditions evidently. (They didn't say anything about other parts of your bodies on the bar however -----OR being pierced!). Sailing south today (Friday)--it's 500 nautical miles to Antarctic-peninsula. We will reach the official Antarctic waters (60 degrees south) at 6 am tomorrow (Sat.)

Went to a lecture today on penguins by the naturalist they have on board who is this wonderful English man with the best bow ties. He is also the resident expert birder on board (there are tons of birders on the ship). Went to another talk this afternoon on Adm. Byrd & his contribution to Antarctic exploring---fascinating and no internet...heh heh...

We will be at sea for the next few days taking pics of the "big snow!!". More when we reach the Antarctic archipelago. Xoxoxo to all of you and so glad we can share all of this! T & J

Our email address is janie8500@gmail.com. Feel free to drop a note and say hello anytime!