Another day another glacier!

Skua Glacier

Party on forward deck

Veggie penguins

Fire and emergency crews on deck 12

Navy helicopter

Lifting the patient from pool deck

Feb 2.  We are traveling in the Chilean fjords again today after exiting into the pacific briefly last night.  Once again everything in the cabin had to be secured and the drawers still opened and closed with the swells.  Geologically this area is young, having been covered with glacial ice until recently.  The landscape is even more barren with sparse vegetation, waterfalls everywhere, and snow and ice covered peaks.  The weather continues to be cloudy and very cold, calling for panty hose under the jeans again today, it's a good thing that it's summer! 
Skua Glacier starts at 6,000 ft and ends at sea level and truly looks like a "river of ice" with three separate flows coming down the mountains.  The ship organized an event on the bow of deck 7 that is usually just for crew.  This was for Seven Seas Society gold and above members.  It was windy and cold but we had an enjoyable time seeing the glacial ice picked up yesterday as well as some great sculptures of penguins made from vegetables.  They served mulled wine and hot chocolate with your choice of alcohol.  They were also serving empanadas and cooking up fritters with apples or pineapple, quite yummy!
At about 8 am the Captain came over the speaker stating that we had a medical emergency and the Chilean navy was sending a helicopter to do an evacuation at about 9:15 and we were told to stay off our balconies and open decks on decks 11 and 12.  Many of the passengers were in the Observation Lounge viewing the Skua glacier and listening to the commentary of the lecturer Terry Breen.  We could see the fire crews had set out hoses and were in their full gear and there were crew members standing guard at all the doors that went to the open decks. By 9:30 nothing had happened and we were just holding place in front of the glacier.  The captain announced that the helicopter had  to go somewhere to refuel and was now expected at 10:30.  We were allowed back outside and the emergency teams went inside.  The poor patient that was to be evacuated was sitting in a wheel chair near the forward elevator on 12 this entire time.  Finally about 11:30 the crews came back out on deck 12 just behind the Observation lounge and started setting up again.  Pretty soon we heard the helicopter, they made several passes but the wind appeared to be too strong in that area so they rushed all the equipment and the patient down to the area of the pool deck near the serving area.  The helicopter sent down a man on a cable and the crew hooked up the litter with the patient and off he went.  Made for quite a bit of excitement.