Discovering Antarctica...Finally!

 Life is pretty good when you can wake up and find this outside your window: After sailing through "Iceberg Alley" this morning, we went for an early landing on Danger Island.  We are the first expedition to visit this island since 2018 and it was the first time ever for the Fram and its crew since the island is normally surrounded by heavy fragments of ice.  On our zodiac ride to the island, we saw many groups of penguins porpoising - they actually fly/dive out of the water like a porpoise. Danger Island has a large colony of Adelie penguins (about 1.5 million), lots of birds (sheathbills and kelp gulls) and three types of seals(Wedell seal stretching, Fur seal coming out of the water and Leopard seal "smiling").  It was a rocky landing but worth the careful plodding. After returning to the boat, the afternoon was spent watching Orcas (the killer whale, which is really in the dolphin family!), looking for other wildlife and watching icebergs and ice floes as we mot...

 We got our first glimpse of land late morning!  Great way to start the day! After breakfast, our entire boat was given the Covid antigen test and I am happy to report that we have no Covid cases onboard!  We will be getting 2 more tests while we cruise as they want to make sure that they catch and isolate cases as early as possible. Afterwards we had a wonderful lecture on glaciers (although I think Courtney could have done a better job).  There are only 2 ice sheets or unconstrained glaciers in the world - in Greenland and Antarctica.  Glaciers are always moving with snow compacting to firn (a transitional layer) which turns to glacier ice.  When the glaciers calve or break off, icebergs form.  Icebergs float because the density of glacier ice is less than the density of water.   We reached Half Moon Island just after lunch.  What a perfect day!  Clear blue skies and temperature around freezing but it feels quite warm with the sun...

 I knew that Drake's Passage could be treacherous but I wasn't quite prepared for this: I wasn't surprised by all the recommendations...it was the top notation that took me off guard...40-60 hours with 20-30 foot waves.  In all the research I did for this trip, I had never actually had seen it spelled out like that! We made it through dinner (thank goodness we were in the first seating) but then the ship really started to rock and roll.  Walking around the ship became very challenging so we headed back to our cabin, took some precautionary seasickness medicine and applied a patch behind our ear as an extra measure.   When you don't feel nauseous and don't have to walk around, the rolling motion is quite an experience.  The night turned out to be "moderate" with only 18-24 foot waves! This was taken today after lunch when the waves had dropped to 9-15 feet (hope the video works!): In spite of the rough seas, it has been a busy day.  We had to watch a br...

 Today we sailed through the Straight of Magellan and the Beagle Channel.  This was the exact route we were supposed to take 22 months ago when the pandemic shortened our Patagonia trip, eliminating the 4-day Tierra del Fuego cruise.  For this reason, I was especially happy that our embarkation point was changed from Ushuaia, Argentina to Punta Arenas, Chile.  I was also delighted to find out that Albie, the tour guide from our Patagonia trip was also a tour guide on this trip!  It was a good decision by Gate1 to cancel the cruise portion of our trip and get us home 2 years ago because I learned from Albie that other tourists that went on that boat had to remain on it for a month when Chile closed their borders! Sailing down the Beagle Channel, you pass the "Avenue of the Glaciers", also known as "Nation Glaciers" since they were named after countries that were doing polar research.  The first glacier shown is Rome and further down is France. This afternoo...

Yesterday was a VERY long day with breakfast at 5:45am so that we could leave the hotel before 7am for out charter flight to Punta Arenas.  Although there were supposed to be 140 passengers on our ship, it was reduced to 115 with people denied entry Chile for not having the right paperwork, proper tests, etc.  Hurtigruten/Gate1 did an amazing job of reducing the chance of Covid, utilizing 6 buses to transport us.  Our flight provided some spectacular views the lakes in Patagonia and of the Patagonia Ice Field, the 3rd largest ice field in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland). But the most important part of the day was when I got this: And we could proceed to the boat! The MS Fram, on the left, takes its name from the wooden ship sailed by several Norwegian explorers between 1893 and 1912, including Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen.  Fortunately the similarity ends with the name as this Fram is a 5-star expedition trip that was refurbished last year.  In ...

Glad that we went out for a fabulous dinner last night at Peru Gustoso because we are not allowed out tonight!  Dinners out have been fabulous and very inexpensive...$65 for an appetizer, 2 entrees, a bottle of wine, desert and coffee....including tip. I went out early today to explore the Parquemet Parque Metropolitano de Santiago and climbed part-way up Cerro San Cristobal, the third highest peak in the city.  If you make it to the top, you will see a statue of the Virgin Mary looking over the city but with temperatures in the high 80s, you want to get back by late morning...plus I didn't want to miss breakfast! The park is nearly 1800 acres, making it one of the largest urban parks in the world.  It includes 2 beautiful public pools, a Japanese garden, a zoo, a cable car and a funicular.     After returning to the hotel, I enjoyed breakfast and a few hours by the pool before I had to check in with Gate1/Hurtigruten.  They were very well organized, c...

  We made it!  Travel is NOT easy these days and not for the faint of heart.  Our flight to Dallas was delayed and I started worrying about our connection and our PCR tests expiring.  Fortunately they made up time and we were fine.  Chile is VERY serious about Covid and their procedures for entering the country are extensive but they are staffing things appropriately.  There were 100 stations to check documents for people flying in and our mandated PCR tests at the airport were streamlined and very efficient.  It took us 3 hours to get out of the airport and then we headed to the Sheraton Santiago where we had to quarantine in our rooms until our PCR tests results were sent to us.  Fortunately we got the (negative) results by 6pm and were able to have a lovely dinner by the pool.  After a good nights sleep, we had a lovely breakfast by the pool and then lounged by the pool until mid-afternoon.  One of the best parts of travel - talking t...