USHUAIA AND THE BEAGLE CHANNEL

Wednesday Feb 25 – Our visit to Ushuaia was uneventful.  We elected not to do a tour and instead, walked downtown and enjoyed the hospitality of the folks.  Passengers were on alert to be back aboard ship by 330PM for a 4PM departure.  However, the wind came up very strong, reaching a high of 40 mph and the Captain delayed our departure until nearly midnight.  Our late departure forced cancellation of our planned stop at Punta Arenas, Chile, which was a disappointment to many of those passengers who prefer to shop as opposed to sight seeing.  Ken's theory was that the high wind made our pulling away from the dock against the wind unsafe.  However, there also appeared to be a medical emergency aboard that may have had some impact on our delay.  No one ever tells us anything but it is rumored among the passengers that there have been several such emergencies – some of which were removed via body bags!  There are a lot of passengers who are not only aged, but frail.  I am surprised at the courage of many of those who appear to be far more infirmed than I would choose to be on such a trip.  Mind you, we are a small city so "gossip" and "rumors" do flow among the passengers.  But one thing is for sure, a large percentage of the passengers are over 70 and counting!   Ken and I did a little window shopping for a couple of hours.  I returned to the ship while he visited two museums to complete his "shore expedition".  Ushuaia is a quaint, picturesque city with an estimated population of 64,000 located on the Beagle Channel, named for the HMS Beagle, the ship that brought naturalist Charles Darwin to the region.  This is our second visit to this port and, in my view it is the most picturesque and enchanting port on this leg of our journey.  According to the shipboard's daily blurb "Ushuaia calls itself the world's southernmost 'city' a title that varies depending on the size it takes to be defined as a city.  Ushuaia doesn't have the population of Chile's Punta Arenas  (population of 146,000) which lies more northerly and it doesn't have the absolute southernmost location of the much smaller Puerto Williams, Chile.  Whether or not this is the southernmost "city" one thing is for certain.  Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, a land that has captivated the imagination of travelers since it was spotted and named by Ferdinand Magellan."  We watched with interest as a ship unloaded its returning passengers from a trip to the Antarctic and loaded its next group of explorers who seemed excited to be headed for  the Antarctic.      Once we departed Ushuaia we cruised through the Straits of Magellan and enjoyed the scenery en route to Punta Arenas where three of our entertainers disembarked the ship along with our Argentine Captains.  We arrived too late for 3,000 passengers to be tendered ashore and thus, we anchored out only long enough to disembark and embark those leaving and arriving.  Chilean Captains boarded the ship for our travel through the Chilean Fjords and new entertainers came aboard.  Our travel through the Straits as well as the Beagle Channel requires Argentine Captains aboard the ship and as we enter the Chilean Fjords, Chilean Captains are aboard and will accompany our travel presumably, into Buenos Aires or at least into Port Mont, our last Port of Call before Buenos Aires.    The entertainment aboard ship has been superb with a wide variety of talent entertaining us along with the ships very talented and outstanding dancers and orchestra.   Our comedian, Tom Sutton, entertained us with several reminders of shipboard travel on Sunday night.  He drew a loud round of applause with his observation "that no one aboard ship knows what day it is but everyone knows exactly what time the next meal will be served."      It turns out that either I or one of the many other passengers similarly blessed, passed along a cold to Marvis.  I feel guilty but in my own defense, there are others who could have been just as generous.  I tried to avoid passing my cold to anyone but alas, Marvis is now afflicted.   Fortunately, so far, the rest of our party seem to be "dodging the bullet" of the shipboard cold.   Tomorrow we will cruise the beautiful Chilean Fjords with their breathtaking beauty of mountains and glaciers reaching above us on either side of the ship.  The scenery will be phenomenal and in our view, second only to the adventure of experiencing Cape Horn itself.    I am very pleased with my "seaworthiness" to date.  A couple of slight waves of "something is not right" prompted me to take a Dramamine on two occasions and beyond tha,t there has been nary a sign of sea sickness.  My cup runneth over.      .   Ken and Pat Burns from the road and/or the sea just as happy as can be