The Drake 2: Passage to Ushuaia
Last day on the ship!
That’s not a celebratory exclamation point by the way, that’s the sort of yelp one makes when time’s up already and you had so many more things to do.
I mean, I don’t have more things to do. But I *could* do more things.
Spend more time on Deck 6 watching for whales, have dinner with the Naturalists, spend more time on Deck 7 for birds, maybe visit the Bridge again???
These are all things I want to do by being closer to the Continent though- not the Drake passage.
No offense to the Drake of course.
Crossing this monstrous behemoth is a task unto itself, but as a Passenger it’s rather…..passive? It’s not easy, (not as hard as a few days ago though in the Weddell Sea coming back from the Eclipse) but since I’m not having to pilot the boat, I’m just along for the ride.
Today is actually light on lectures- one from a Naturalist about the different types of Ice that can be found in Antarctica (they actually have way more names than Glacier, Iceberg, and Bergy Bit.)
Learned about Fast Ice, Brush Ice, Ice Floes, First year ice, sea ice, old ice….all the different types of ice we saw. They make it sound like….(“they” being the Naturalists)….like they can visually tell the difference between the freshwater ice in the ocean vs the salt water ice. The lecture….sort of covered it.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but the Naturalists team is made up of individuals from numerous countries- mostly French, but also Germany and Spain- and the lecturer on the Ice (I think it was Laurent?) Well he was French. And half of his slides were in French.
He translated them into English, but I think that’s probably where my brain just skipped over that explanation.
I’mma look it up later.
And the only other thing besides that lecture was a short documentary (37 minutes) of an individual’s attempt at going around Cape Horn.
IT WAS BIZARRE. In a great way. The footage was taken in 1929, no sound, black and white but the narration was like….The Dude, who had filmed it, he was watching it with us and explaining what we were seeing. Apparently he was a very young man then and he desperately wanted to sail through a storm around Cape Horn and video the entire thing. And by god he did. It included ship life on a Square rigger that left port from…..Ireland? They traveled the North Sea at the beginning so there’s the reference. Don’t get me wrong, this guy was not here on L’Austral. But apparently he used to take this footage to lecture halls and talk about it there and this was basically another one of those but he also acknowledged that he had done that. (I’m actually typing this on the plane from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, but I’ll have the title later.) If you’ve got 37 minutes to spare, I say watch it. it’s informative, it’s a little absurd, it feels like a conversation, and it’s rare footage! (Also I am so sure the narrator was in love with the Captain) But other than those two things, the theater was mostly dark. Packing was the priority for many. And some of us had to get Covid tests today to disembark the ship tomorrow. I purchased some photos and video from the ship photographers (because, yes I love my photos, but they can get stuff I can’t, etc, etc…) and kinda did some last minute wandering. It was a lot of killing time. I took a nap at one point because I wanted to try and be awake when we entered the Beagle Channel (originally told that would happen at midnight) and we settled our accounts, and all of the things that aren’t fun about wrapping up a trip. I am excited to go home. Everyone is excited to go home. Could we all spend another week out here? Probably. I could. But is the idea of sleeping in my bed and hugging Nissan and being able to take a shower in something larger than a little cubby enticing?? Absolutely. I miss being able to stretch in the shower. (At least the water was always hot!) It’s absolutely a 5 star cruise, catered to day and night, but yeah. I could go home. And since I have to…I’m happy I am. Not excited about the next few days of traveling through airports though. Argentina was very easy to fly into- I hope it’s easy to fly out of. So! Back to the last day. On the boat. We do all the things, and there’s a Final Recap held by the Naturalist team. And it was *hilarious* They showed us funny videos, they had skits, one of them did a comic of our time on board! I don’t know anything about cruises. Not really. But I don’t know if anything can really top this? The staff, the passengers…it’s been phenomenal. And the Final Recap had a raffle drawing for the hand charted map that was used on the Bridge and then drawn on by the ship’s dancers and some of the other crew. It was great! Didn’t get it. I did get a tiny map for my memories. And as much as I wanted it, do I really have space for a map that is…..it was like, 3x5 feet? It was *large*. Then it was the final dinner! Delicious as always. That’s the other thing I’m not really going to miss either. All the meals! They’re all amazing! But I don’t normally eat three meals a day, and sometimes with several courses! I gained so much weight on this trip. I mean, totally worth it….but still. And the final final thing…. a full show! They had the dancers perform in the theater, with like, FULL headdresses and costumes and lights (they had a spotlight!), singing, background graphics, projection….
It was phenomenal. Very French. Moulin Rouge, Cancan, Monster in Paris, uh, that song that’s like, “NOOOOONNNNNNNN RIEN DE RIEN…….NOOOOOOOOOOOO JE NE REGRETTE RIEN……”
You know! That one! And the dancers did some lip-syncing to some of the songs, and they were SPOT ON. The first time it happened, it was so perfectly timed, I was like, “WHAAaaaa? Wait a minute…” It was so good I really believed it for a second. It was a great time. But when that ended, that’s when I had to pack. Managed to get everything in, including the parka! but UHH. I quadrupled checked, but I still feel like I forgot something. I really can’t have, but I still feel like it. OH So, what happened with the Beagle Channel? While we were at dinner, we got there. Captain had made *great* time today in the Passage, and we arrived several hours earlier than initially planned. So I kinda missed it. Bummer about that. Maybe that’s what I forgot. I should have made it work? I don’t know though- I’ve been enjoying being social, and being at dinner, and going to see lectures and shows with my new friends! I guess there’s this….I don’t know what to call it. Disconnect? With traveling abroad. You should live life, experience things, see things-
Does seeing a landscape unique to a region supersede the friendships you can make?
I made my choice, and I don’t regret spending more time with these people. The Beagle Channel is millions of years old, it’ll be there when I want to go back.
(I did take some phone pictures though before the show.) If you’ve made it this far…. Congratulations! That’s basically the end of my Antarctica journey. We safely crossed the Drake Passage and terrible seas, I saw Penguins and Seals and Albatrosses and Skuas and Whales and the Moon’s shadow, we landed on islands few people have, we landed on the Continent! We landed on Ice Floes, and we got drenched by the Antarctic Sea. A little polar plunge. I attended lectures by Harvard, MIT, Duke, and Colorado College professors and lectures by someone from the Smithsonian and Nasa! (though he wasn’t here representing Nasa.) I learned history, geology, marine biology, and a smidge about astrophysics. I had great friends to chat with all trip long, and I saw the sky in a 22 light hour cycle (and I still got to see it dark!) I ate good food, drank French wine, and tried things I’ve never had before. I think I took great pictures and I think I have enough video for a tiny documentary. I got to chat DnD with the Naturalists and chat about their lives and share amazing stories. It feels like the trip has been nothing but highlights really. I still have to go through Ushuaia and Buenos Aires and that has more of a “I’m in charge again” kinda vibe but it should go well, right? Thanks for sticking with me. With sleepy days and short blog posts and lack of pictures….I don’t know if people like reading this, but I enjoy writing it out. Getting to process the day in whatever capacity it took. I still don’t share….some… things. At least not in detail. (A French massage is very different than the ones I’ve gotten back home, and some of the food combined with the waves…. That part I’m okay with forgetting). Definitely the trip of a lifetime.
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