Cape Horn

Are you fishing?

I bet that's awesome! Looking forward to some pics.

Antarctic cruise. In the Drake passage heading south right now... in a fog bank.

Wow, would love to read about the trip! I thought the seas around the Horn were treacherous? How many day cruise? Which cruise line are you on?

Edited by Rogillio 2019-02-08 10:33 AM

I was blown away yesterday. We saw so many humpback whales , that people eventually just ignored them. North Shetland Islands this AM was beyond description. I saw a block of ice the size of Rhode Island. I’m exaggerating, but it was staggering to see such a monolith of ice, for lack of better words. The weather was amazing and We both got a little burnt! Off to Elephant Island next.

Rog, it is a Celebrity cruise out of Buenos Aires. No, the Cape was like glass for us. Uncommonly mellow seas so far.

Elephant Island delivered. Apparently it is almost always fogged up and barely visible. Not for us, the ice pilot, a guy who’s sailed down here his entire career told the narrator that he’d never seen it so clear. Apparently it is fogged in 98% of the time so we got an a great view. I have a newfound respect for the Shackleton expedition and will have to re read the book.

. No humpbacks, but Minke whales in the hundreds. They barely break the surface and kept their distance, so I didn’t get any pictures of them. It was an impressive sight to see hundreds of whales spouting at the same time. Again, too far off for pics, but an awesome sight in the binoculars I got to see an ice berg calve as we were leaving. No pic as I had cam in pocket warming my hands.

I mentioned the huge iceberg yesterday and found our narrator on deck to ask him how big it was. 14x5. Miles! Tomorrow is the Falkland Islnds and we will get on the ground in a penguin rookery. We’re pretty excited about that as we’ve seen them swimming and lounging on ice all of the trip.

Very cool! I mentioned this to my wife as a potential trip for next year. The first ones I looked at were 14 day cruises and she thought that was too long. How long is your cruise?

"Think of Schroedinger's Cat, except with a lobotomy."


The cop pulls over Schroedinger and is suspicious so orders him to pop open the trunk.
He checks it out and says “Do you know you have a dead cat back here?”
“I do now, jerk!” shouts Schrodinger.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/antarctic-search-closes-in-ernest-sh...

"Antarctic search closes in on Endurance, the lost ship of explorer Ernest Shackleton"

Were on a 14 day one too Mike. And it is too long imo. I’ll pm you details when I get to a keyboard!

The Falkland Islands... what a god forsaken sh##hole. I should walk that back and say it is a beautiful, rugged place with friendly people. Very friendly and they all wanted to chat with us. No trees and loads of wind. Wind and more wind. It was mid forties with a windchill honking at a steady clip.

We got to see the Gentoo, Magellan and some King penguins. They a load of fun and so cute we had to resist the urge to reach out and hug the little guys. The weather conditions were so harsh it was difficult to enjoy them for very long. Amazing creatures to have adapted to such a place. I wasn’t really prepared for the smell. Even with gale force winds honking across the area, the smell was pretty rough. Think dead fermented sea life vomit combined with all the other penguin smells. Toss in the dead penguin or two and you are getting the idea! They feed the little ones by puking up a pink mixture of whatever the parent was bringing back from the sea. They aren’t very efficient at it and the stuff was everywhere. Still the wildlife highlight of my trip.

Hit the ground in SA this Am and am wiped out. I'll get some images up in the next few days. But how cute is this little guy we found in the Falklands?







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He is cute...but is he edible? Prolly tastes like chicken. Cool pictures!

Just checking resizing to see what I can post. Ushuaia, Argentina. The end of the Pan American Highway. Tierra Del Fuego NP.

Edited by mdg2003 2019-02-20 8:46 AM






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This is Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego NP. We were not as impressed with TDF as we had anticipated. Talking with help desk, we determine it wasn't really that big and there were roughly 4 hiking trails. The town itself was very nice, clean and seemed pretty safe.

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Awesome!

I'm going to have to figure out what happened with sizing there. We showed up at Cape Horn, it was cloudy, this fog bank rolled through with rain and the sun came out. Since we crossed into Chilean waters to get there, the put a pilot on board and charged a fee. Everyone wants their cut. Barely a roll on the water.

Edited by mdg2003 2019-02-20 10:39 AM
















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First berg! I think everyone was so excited we all took about 80 pics of it.





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First views of the place. First whales that were up fairly close to us.

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This guy just appeared from under the ship. I nearly dropped my camera! If you've never been that close to a whale when they breathe… let's just say it's an impressive sound. There is absolute dead silence, then, whoosh!

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