The End of the Earth - Tierra del Fuego and Drake Passage

Hello from the Drake Passage. I think we had 15-20 foot sweels last night, but other than waking up from the rocking, I'm ok. I am not sea sick, which is a positive, but druing the daytime all the rocking makes me want to sleep. I'm fighting the urge with cappuchino, but am fairly certain the sea will win out. The voyage thus far has been very enjoyable. I've attended some lectures on plate tectonics, birds, how to better use my camera, etc...all in preparation for our expected landfall on Antarctica tomorrow morning. I also learned how to abandon ship, a skill I hope I will not need.

There are some awesome birds that keep trailing the ship, Albatross (many varieties), Great Petrel, and a few others. I'm attaching some photos so you can see what I'm seeing.





Just to bring you up to speed. I landed in Santiago on Sunday morning and took a quick tour of the city in the afternoon, stopping in to se the Pre-Columbian Museum, which had some very interesting pieces of artwork. My favorite was this Incan string/rope piece which was used to count and record virtually everything, from food to population, productivity, and so much more. Unfortunately, the picture didn't come out great because of the glare.

On Monday we took a charter flight from Santiago, Chile, to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern-most city in the world. It's located in Tierra del Fuego (or Fireland) and is at the base of the Andes, where the mountains literally just pop out of the water. Best part of the plane ride had to be about 10 minutes before landing when they announced "we will now be spraying the cabin with insecticide, this will cause you no harm." Creepy.

Once in Ushuaia We took a bus to the National Park there, got off to scope out some scenic views, and then took a catamaran ride from the national park into the harbour in Ushuaia. While approaching the harbour, there was a lot of debate about which of the two large ships docked in the port was ours. I voted for the smaller of the two. However, once we go close, we noticed that ours was in fact hiding between the smaller of the two and roughly 10% of its size. Our boat is tiny compared to a cruise ship.

Tomorrow we are set to land on one of the outer islands of Antarctica and I hope to see my first penguin, but for now, that's all. Enjoy the pictures, sorry there isn't more, but as you may suspect - internet in this part of the world is rather limited.