Feb 12, Buenos Aires

Our ship docked at 9 am  and we did not have a tour until after lunch so we had the morning to do a few chores and some preliminary packing for our trip to Iguazu Falls.  There were already two other cruise ships in the port, The "Costa Magica" and the "Silver Spirit".  Both ships were having a passenger turnover and the cruise terminal was packed when we left for our tour.  There were several thousand passengers that included lot of families with children that were waiting to board the Costa ship, we were told that they do a 10 day turn around trip to Rio. 

We could see four McD's from this location

Colorful buildings in the "La Boca" area

Lots of blooming trees

Evita's dresses on display

Colonial builing housing Evita museum

Our tour was a highlight tour that included the Evita museum and a visit to her tomb.  Buenos Aires is a pretty city with wide boulevards with lots of trees, many of which were in full bloom.  Parts of the city are very European and the people look European. 
We decided to cancel our evening tour to a tango show as we would have only had one hour to eat dinner and get cleaned up, plus we have to be ready to leave the ship at 6:45 in the morning for our trip to the falls. 

Feb 10 and 11, sea day and Montevideo, Uruguay

We had a great sea day with warm temperature and calm water, a nice change!  We are going to get all the cold weather clothes clean and pack them away for the rest of the cruise.  They had a formal night for the "Captain's Farewell"  party and the "Krew Kapers" show.  That was probably one of the best crew talent shows we have seen on Regent.  Near the end of the show they had a large number of the crew doing dance numbers that included quite a few Michael Jackson impersonations that were really very good. We had a nice dinner in Compass Rose, probably the last dinner with our favorite waitress, Kerti, who is leaving the ship in Buenos Aires.
We arrived in Montevideo at about 10 am and quickly were off the ship on a bus tour of the entire city.  We had an excellent tour guide that showed us many historical sights as well as some of the really nice areas of homes. 
After the tour we stopped for a late lunch  at the "Mercado Del Puerto", originally a train station it is now a large area of restaurants and shops right across from the cruise ship pier.  The restaurants all serve various barbequed meats that are cooked over coals.  The place was packed with cruise passengers from our ship and one other, the Prinsendam, plus lots of locals as it is Saturday.  Tom had a really good local beer and we split a steak and sausage plate, plenty of food for sure!
Tonight is the ship barbeque on the pool deck, we plan on just having salad, since we already had a least a one day quota of meat for lunch.

Crew doing "Thiller"

Our favorite waitress (she's standing on her toes!)

Life size bronze of a stage coach

BBQ for lunch!

Tomorrow we will be in Buenos Aires, the ship stays there for three nights and there will be a big turnover of passengers on the second day as we start the final leg of the cruise.  We spend the first night there and then fly to Isuazu Falls on the morning of the 13th and will spend the night in a hotel at the falls, returning to the ship on the 14th in Buenas Aires.  We have a return trip of one day in Montevideo on the 15th. 

Slight damage to Mariner leaving port

Where the aft lines were attached

Full power on stern thruster to try and keep ship straight as we reversed

We hit about mid ship, concrete rained down into water

shattered window in Compass Rose

This afternoon when we started to back away from the pier the wind picked up to 45 knots and the ship was pushed into the smaller pier? (I think the captain called it a dolphin) that the lines had been tied to.  There was a loud crunch and concrete from the pier fell into the water. A double window in the Compass Rose Dining room was shattered.  The workers were right there to try and repair the window immediately.  Made for some excitement on board.

2/7, 2/8, 2/9 two sea days and Puerto Madryn

Buses lined up on the pier, picture taken from our balcony

Nice goodies at the tea

Full house for the tea

After leaving the Falkland Islands without being able to anchor we spent the day in heavy seas, welcome to the Atlantic!! About 1 am on the 8th we hit some very rough weather with winds in excess of 90 mph, needless to say it was a noisy, bouncy night.  We had all sorts of creaking and groaning in our room even though we had stuffed some folded paper in the door. Taking a morning shower was a bit of a challenge, the shower doors are three panels that sort of overlap but can slide independently, so while in the shower the doors kept sliding open and you were standing in a couple of inches of water that kept sloshing back and forth like a tidal wave, all the time hanging on to the grab bar with one hand.  We decided to have breakfast in the main dining room, Compass Rose because it is on deck five and there would not be as much movement as our usual dining choice on deck 11.  While eating all of a sudden the room sort of turned dark and I thought maybe the lights had gone out- wrong!  it was a huge wave that completly covered up the windows.  Quite an exciting morning but by the afternoon we had sailed out of the weather system.

While we were having dinner that evening in Prime 7 the captain made an announcement that we were cranking up the engines to get to the next port as soon as possible as we had another medical emergency.  We arrived in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, at 1am and the patient was evacuated to a hospital (that makes 6 so far that have had to leave the ship).

Our tour today was a 1.5 hour bus ride to the town of Gaiman that was founded by people from Wales around 1860.  The countryside is quite bleak with just low scrub bushes, but we did see some guanacos, which are members of the llama family.  We had a Welsh tea served in a tea room that was large enough to accomodate our four busses.  We were also entertained by a local choir that sang in both Welsh and Spanish.  The different sweets and sandwiches were nice but it was a long ride to have tea!

Feb 6 & 7 At sea and Port Stanley--not!

Monday was a sea day and this was the first day of really rough seas.  The swell was probably about 18 ft with high winds.  While at breakfast in La Veranda on deck 11 we had a strong swell come from the side and dishes, glassware and food fell to the floor.  It was hard to walk without staggering and bumping into things.  We had these same conditions most of the day.
We had dinner in Compass Rose with two of the entertainers, one of the female dancers and the male singer, it was a most enjoyable evening talking to these young people. 
This morning we came to the Falkland Islands and were supposed to anchor off of Port Stanley.  We dropped the anchor about 6:30 but because of the 45 knot winds the anchor would not hold on the sandy bottom.  We sailed away for about a half hour, turned around and went back to try again.  The wind had diminished but was supposed to build during the day so the captain made the decision to leave.  Everyone was very disappointed as this was the stop with the best site to see three types of penguins and most were going on the "penguin tours".  The tour directior is now rushing to plan some onboard activities to keep us all busy.

Islas de los Estados on Monday

Big crowd for the Super Bowl

Our brief view of Port Stanley

End of the World, Ushuaia, Argentina 2-5-12

We docked in Ushuaia, Argentina, at 8 am, the town is very picturesque being surrounded by the snow covered Andes.   It was bitterly cold and windy with snow flurries turning to rain later in the morning.  We had originally booked a four wheel drive excursion but had changed to what we thought would be a warmer tour that was mostly in a bus.  We went to the Tierra Del Fuego National Park.  There is little wild life and the trees are generally quite small.  The scenery was nice, but not spectacular, we did see a gray fox and a red fox, black necked swans and several families of Upland Geese. 
Ushuaia bills itself as the "End of the World".  Several smaller cruise ships leave from here to visit Antarctica during these "warmer" summer months.  The Pan American Highway ends here although it is just a dirt road.  We leave tonight and spend tomorrow at sea before reaching the Falkland Islands on Tuesday. 
Tonight there will be a big Super Bowl party in the theater with hamburgers, hot dogs, pop corn, etc.  We will not be there for the start of the party as our trivia partner, Michael, has arranged a special dinner of Peking duck for a small group.  This is the first time that we have taken part in a "special request" dinner and we are looking forward to the meal. 

Southernmost golf course in the world

Notice the distance to Alaska

Andes mountain above Ushuaia

Our special dinner group seated at Captain's table

I started writing this blog before dinner, but was unable to finish as the internet was down.  We have just finished our special dinner and it was excellent. 

Beagle Channel/Cape Horn 2-4-12

We entered the channel overnight passing through the "Avenue of the Glaciers" during the morning.  The glaciers come from the Darwin Ice Field on the island of Tierra Del Fuego.  The channel is a fjord much like we have experienced for the last several days.  We had fog, rain, hail, and snow during the morning.  Good thing it is summer here, high temp is mid 40's.

We passed Ushuaia, Argentina, (where we will return Sunday morning) as we make our way south to Cape Horn.  There are huge numbers of birds including albatross, terns, skuas, and giant petrols.  We also had a pod of whales near the ship.

First glacier of the day!

Just another glacier

Cape Horn

Rounding the horn

Our journey to Cape Horn was fantastic.  We had 75 knot winds, (90 mph), but luckily the swells were only about 20 feet in height.  The ship struggled in the wind but it was well worth it.  Tradition dictates that the ship sounds its horn, followed by a moment of silence in memory of those many sailors who perished rounding the cape. 

We arrive back in Ushuaia at 8:00 AM.  We are re-provisioning replacing the Chilean wines with ones from Argentina.  Tom is worried what wines we will have once we arrive in Brazil but hopes the scantilly clad girls on Ipenema and Copa Cabana beaches will make up for the drop in quality of wine.