We've been traveling south along the west coast of Chile at a steady 17 knots for a little more than a day since leaving Puerto Montt. I grabbed a picture off the TV screen for you, which shows all of our ports, and our current location is the little triangle just above Punta Arenas.
So far, the weather has held for us, with blue skies and some scattered puffy white clouds, and the temperatures are about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday but still quite comfortable. Great conditions for January, especially when we see snow predicted back home. We have been advised it will turn windier, possibly MUCH windier, as we continue south, however. The captain told us this morning that the winds on the trip up last week were hurricane force, about 80 knots, along with rain. We will hope for better conditions. This summer-in-January thing has been odd for us with the mild temps and long hours of daylight. When we left home, we were happy that sunset had finally passed 5 pm; sunset tonight was at 10 pm.
Today was a rather lazy day....we had breakfast at 9:30, wandered about the ship, bumped into friends and chatted, ate lunch in the dining room, Tom attended a veteran's get together while I went to bingo with Kathi and Jackie. Nope, none of us even came close to winning the jackpot, maybe next time. Then we read a bit or walked about before meeting in the lounge at 5 for happy hour drinks and snacks before dinner. Not a lot to report as you can tell, which for us is a perfect day at sea.
We did sit out for a little bit on the balcony, just watching the wake and the birds. We think they may be frigate birds, but have no idea why we think we heard that. Nor do we know what a frigate bird even looks like, so I'll have to remember to look that one up in Sibley's upon our return. (White body no underwing, dark on top, long skinny wing, bent wing shape. Long beak much like a seagull.). Or I will stop by and see if the semi-professional bird watchers up forward have their books with them.
We have noticed that the swells have begun to increase today. The one factoid that does not seem to appear on the ship data channel is the sea condition, but the ocean has visible whitecaps along with that visible rocking of the rail. At times, the rocking motion puts great pressure on your joints, so many of us sort of bounce from one side of the room/hall/elevator to the other while trying to avoid hitting anyone else. It results in a sort of shipwide version of people as bumper cars. No big accidents that I know of, but with a demographic that is decidedly mature....well, we are all being cautious.
In a few hours (~2am Sunday morning) we will be entering the fjords of southern Chile and then about 8 am we will anchor off the Amalia Glacier for some viewing. Tom ordered room service breakfast for us tomorrow to be delivered just before we reach the Glacier, so we can sit on our balcony (wind permitting) and watch for wildlife at breakfast.
As it is late Saturday now (technically it's 15 minutes into Sunday here) I will try to post this and get the Glacier and fjord pictures up tomorrow.
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