on the 19th of November my father flew home and i met up with Anna which was joining me for the second trip. As a matter of fact i met her in a penguin store i passed on my way around in Ushuaia, which in fact is a beautifull situated tourist town.
we left Ushuaia the same evening and entered the Beagle Channel and later on we entered the Strait of Magellan. the fjords in the southern part of Chile look a lot like the fjords in Norway.
Arriving in Punta Arenas late in the evening the 20th we had to wait more than 2 horus for more than 10 customs officials to stamp our passports and go threw papers...go figure;0)
the next day i had to follow some of the passengers on a excursion, a hike, but these people try to cheat you all the time. it all started out really bad but ended up quite well. Anna was walking around in town in the mean-time. Anna and I met up at lunch whereafter we walked around in the city, that has the most craziest wirering of electricity i have ever seen, strangely enough the town hasn´t burned down...
we found Shackleton bar and stayed there a while, enjoying the atmosphere of this old place where Shackleton came asking for help when his men were stuck on Elephant island.
in the evening we tried to get something to eat and drink in town, but again the locals didn´t care about us so after 1 1/2 hrs we left the place without getting anything to eat. shame on them.
the ship left port in the early hrs of dawn and we had a landing at hrs 0530 at Magdalena Island, where 100 000 Magelanic penguins are spread all over...
Then we continued to Puerto Williams, an old chilean naval base on opposite to Ushuaia. here we had a good hike and spent some time in the jacuzzi at deck 7!
From Puerto Williams we went towards Cape Horn, but aborted a landing as we had between 25 and 32 m/sek winds and 7 m waves. so the course was turned towards Antarctica and here we are.
the first day we had two landing at Deception Island, an old caldera (volcanic crater) that is still active, meaning the sea-floor is growing by 30 cm pr year and warm water flows around some places. the first landing was at Whalers Bay, an old whaling station and British base. some groups where walking over the mountain to a penguin colony, but got hammered by around 30 m/sek winds and snow and had some difficulties getting back. around half of the passengeres didn´t even get on shore. After lunch we went to Telefon Bay in the northern part of the Caldera where everyone got on land and around 14 people went for a swim. the water temp was -1 and we had a strong breeze...
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