Sailing to the Falkland Islands

In the previous post in this series Ushuaia I described the first evening on the ship. The story continues ...

Evening of Tuesday, 1st March 2016

Most passengers were on deck as our ship made its way through the Beagle Channel to the South Atlantic. We passed one small cruise ship heading for Ushuaia - the 'Bremen', operated by Hapag-LLoyd. After we’d enjoyed the very pleasant experience, dinner was available in the restaurant on Deck 4 at the stern of the ship. With windows on three sides, the restaurant always offered good views but on that evening there were spectacular views of the sun setting behind us, to the accompaniment of good food and excellent company.

Seating was not pre-allocated so, from meal to meal, I was able to move from table to table and meet some of the interesting passengers on board. We were just over one hundred passengers, attentively looked after by over one hundred and twenty crew.

After the meal, it was possible to move to the lounge for drinks and conversation with music from Alfredo, the talented Phillipino keyboard player. However, I was happy to return to my cabin (409 on the starboard side, forward) and get a good nights rest.

Events of Wednesday, 2nd March 2016

We spent the whole day at sea, completing the 300 miles from Ushuaia to the Falkland Islands, punctuated by convivial meals in the restaurant for breakfast, lunch and, in the evening after the Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party, dinner.

I missed the lecture on plate tectonics whilst catching up on e-mails and blogging (courtesy of the ship’s satellite communication system) but I attended Victoria Salem’s interesting account of the history of the Falkland Islands.

In the afternoon, there was the ‘Mandatory IAATO and Zodiac Briefing’ followed by an outline of the plans for the following day. Then, rubber boots were available on loan for fitting, although most passengers had brought their own which were inspected and labelled by expedition staff. In the Theatre, Jonathan Rossouw gave a lecture on Falkland Birds which I was able to follow on the television in my cabin, whilst working on the internet. Then, it was time to get ready for the cocktail party followed by dinner with Isabel and four passengers I’d not talked to before. After an enjoyable evening with my new friends, I returned to my cabin to sort things out for the following day, when we had an early start to go ashore at Steeple Jason Island in the Falkland Islands.

Related posts

Next South Atlantic post.

All my South Atlantic posts.

My pictures

You can find all my pictures on the trip in the Collection Cape to Cape (still being added to, at the time of writing).

There are a few pictures of the trip in the album South Atlantic Voyage.

['Cape to Cape' collection added 5-Apr-2016]