Ushuaia - fin du monde

We’ve returned from a long am walk in Ushuaia. Ushuaia bills itself as Fin du Monde, or End of the World, because it is the most southern city in the world. The city sits in a bowl of mountains surrounding it, except for an exit to the sea. It’s a pretty town (larger than we thought – 60,000 people) that is oriented to hiking, climbing, and outdoors in Patagonia. It is quite pleasant, sunny, and close to 70 degrees F today.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a flight early tomorrow am.

Ushuaia - again

Well, it is a beautiful day in Ushuaia – good news! We are still here – bad news. At this time, we expect to fly to Miami tomorrow am, but the plane is in Lima, Peru, awaiting Argentine paperwork. We don’t know if that means security or bribes that is gumming up the works.

We can’t wait to get home to hug everyone. Hopefully, we won’t be updating this message tomorrow am.

Albartoss and Rock Hoppers

Rock hoppers and albatross – we had a beautiful pm. There was a pleasant walk (about 20 min.) to cliffs overlooking the opposite shore of New Island. Our pictures don’t do justice to the heights, so here are close-ups of two birds.
BTW, we have had no adverse effects from the earthquake. But we also do not know if we can fly in or out of Santiago. Hopefully, we will hear more on that tomorrow.

Carcass Island

Can you imagine living 35 years on an island named Carcass running a sheep farm? We met the McGills (H&W) who have done just that. It was a pretty island, and hiking up the hills was peaceful and calm – but 35 years?! This pm we’ll see New Island, a home of nesting Black Browed Albatross and rock-hopper penguins.

Hydroponic gardening

Today we are in Stanley, the main town in the Falkland Islands. They are partly noted for their colorful roofs. Yesterday, both DeDe and Pop Pop had a massage. We were so relaxed we missed blogging (also, in part, because we were still at sea, and did not have much to report). This pm, we are going to a hydroponic (?) garden. We’ll be learning what that is.

Wow! We just got back from the Stanley Garden Centre. They have acres of support fields, and lots of smaller Quonset huts for starting seedlings. But the main growing area is a large series of Quonset huts covering 1/3 of an acre. In this structure they grow everything in fertilized water in a self-contained, recycled system, with no soil. There they grow peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, cukes, beans, etc. At the height of the summer, they harvest ½ ton of peppers, and over one ton of tomatoes per week. It is amazing how efficient agriculture can be.

At sea

Today and tomorrow we are at sea. The wind is howling outside, and we need to hold the ropes and handrails inside. We’ve had lectures/discussions today on the Falklands, whaling, videography, and later on another photography critique of our best shots, weather permitting. DeDe has been lying low today, fortunately reading a good book, not worse.

Albatross Alley

Today we visited our last stop on South Georgia, a bay called Elsehul. We’ve affectionately nick-named it Albatross Alley. As we blog, we’ve set sail for the Falkland Islands. At Elsehul, we saw, as you might expect, penguins, seals, and mostly, albatross. Some of these birds have a wing-span of 12 ft. These huge and graceful birds are especially spectacular when flying together in formation, looking like an air force squadron.

Macaroni

This pm we went to Hercules Bay, a small cove with lots of Macaroni Penguins. The swells were extreme, so we had to stay in the Zodiacs. Another highlight was seeing a pair of Sooty-Headed Albatrosses flying in tight formation. One of our favorite guides is Tom Ritchie, who, as you can see, is our National Geographic Explorer.

Steep and Fortuna Bay

Yesterday, Pop Pop said we were to hike only 1,000 ft. up during a 5 k walk. Oops – it was on average, a 20% grade up and down (with long stretches much steeper), with a long moraine to the shore after the descent. Today, we saw King Penguins, and this pm we’ll see a Macaroni colony on the cliffs of a small, cozy cove.

Can you guess which is the Obama Penguin?

Poems from Godthul

This am, DeDe and Pop Pop veged out. This pm, we’ll walk part of the trail Shackelton took over South Georgia to get to the whaling station and rescuers. Of course, he climbed across the whole island and over 9,000 feet – we’ll do about 5 k, and about 1,000 ft. height.
For today’s blog, here are two poems from Godthul, two days ago.

Godthul: Good Cove – 1
Vast bowl heaved from sea
Tufts of grass to craggy scree
Solitary man.

Godthul - 2
Kayaking smoothly
Midst swells, snow, seals, snaky kelp
Picture thee and me.

Here's why we were speechless!

We're speechless!

Godthul and Grytviken in South Georgia

Today was a busy day, starting in the early am with Pop Pop and yoga, then a kayak ride with both DeDe and Pop Pop in Godthul, Norwegian for “Good Cove.” South Georgia is different from Antarctica – in Antarctica there is only 2” of rainfall per year. Here in South Georgia, it rains or snows 300 days per year. We’ve been here two days, it snowed in both, and it is the dead of summer. The kayak ride was on clear water, with swells near the rocks by the shore. The elephant seal in the picture was lolling about until we must have gotten too close, when first the head came up, then the tail, and we decided that DeDe should “click” and we retreat.
Later that morning, we hiked up to the back of the bowl forming the cove with steep crags and scree all around us, where there was a mountain pond, and rushing streams.
We’re getting photog lessons, and the flower picture is an experiment by Pop Pop that seemed to work out. Bet in the winter, all those little flowers are buried in snow!

South Georgia blizzard

We’ve landed – well, not really. The day’s agenda said, “South Georgia is notorious for strong sudden winds.” We have them. Pop Pop went out for a Zodiac ride with snow coming down sideways as we drove up a fijord. It was very cold, but beautiful. This am, we were in front of a glacier when two “shooters” exploded the water. A shooter is a large chunk of ice that breaks off from the bottom of the glacier deep underwater. As the iceberg breaks water, there is a massive upheaval. On the bridge, the Captain said shooters are much more dangerous than calving – because the ice is much more compressed, and the size of the shooters is much larger.
DeDe is biking in the wellness area regularly because she is complaining that she now has more blubber than a Weddel seal (she doesn’t, but it makes a good story).

Chimping

The Orkney Islands are full of penguins and seals. We also learned a new word – chimping. That’s when traveling photographers look at the pictures they have just taken, saying, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.” Today's pics are DeDe's from yesterday.

All the islands have similar topography – sharp, peaked rocks, with glacial valleys, rocky coasts, and floating or grounded icebergs offshore.

Today we’re headed to South Georgia, and literally, millions of animals. In the meantime, however, Pop Pop has spent much of the morning laying in bed, with the seas rocking, pitching, and rolling the ship. “Ooh, ooh,” with a different tone.

Photo evaluation

We are sailing today to the South Orkney Islands. The Nat Geo and Lindblad photographers will critique our pics tonight. We've submitted these two from yesterday. This am we saw a Blue (very large) whale and her baby (quite rare to see both). A research scientist on board went out and took a blubber sample from a Zodiak with a crossbow and arrow - very exciting (and cold).

Shackelton's rescue

We went out again today, and saw the place where the crew on the Shackelton Expedition stayed in the winter of 1916. The expedition was stranded in pack ice from January to October, 1915, when their ship was crushed by ice. They hauled and then rowed life boats across the ice flow to Elephant Island where Shackelton and four others left the party in April, 1916, and rowed 800 miles during winter in the world’s worst seas to the island of South Georgia. After several failed rescue attempts, Shackelton and a Chilean sea captain rescued the men in August, 1916. The monument in the picture was erected by the Chileans to honor the rescuing captain. Some of the Brits on board seem put out that there is no monument to Sir Shackelton.
As an added bonus this pm, the glacier calved; we saw two leopard seals, and penguins jumping four feet out of the water onto wet rocks to escape the seal.

PICTURE

We have at least one pic thanks to Mozilla Firefox.

Elephant Island

We landed at Elephant Island, a place Sir Ernest Shackelton’s men landed and stayed the winter while a few men sailed to Georgia and returned to save the rest of the crew. We saw Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Macaroni penguins, fur and elephant seals, and petrals. We also saw a Right whale, a relatively rare species. Yesterday, we could not download a picture – we’ll try again today. The landscapes are beyond description ; everything is surreal.

Yuuck! No pictures again.

R&R following a hike up a mountain

Yesterday pm we walked up a snow-covered mountain about 900 ft high. We made it but were happy to slide part way rather than walking the whole way down. Today DeDe and Pop Pop had the chance to swim in the water off of Deception Island. We chickened out and watched the dozen or so swimmers from the ship’s sunny library.

We’re now headed for Elephant Island, part of the Shetland Islands.

P.S. comment to J&J - we are not bringing any penguins back - they share a trait with geese.