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Home > Diaries > 2019 > 781 |
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I'M AT the port now, having spent much of the day up the mountain up there relaxing and doing a bit more walking in the area, and getting geared up for the big trip about to start. There's a bunch of buses here that we are about to pile onto, and they are going to take us onto the main wharf and onto the Ocean Diamond somewhere out there. It's one of the ships on the other side of the wharf. It's pretty exciting and I would like the film the entire trip there but because there is going to be passport control as we leave Argentina going into Antarctica which will be a very interesting one to do. So I've got my passport and travel documents and everything ready to go so next time I see you will be on board the ship probably looking for my cabin number 514 I think it is. I'm very excited to be going and everything is ready to go with the ship ready, my luggage already on board so I'll see you on board. OK I'm now in the passageway of level 5 and coming into the room now where I'm staying, 514. It is right in the middle of the ship so that means when it is pitching in the big waves this area will get the minimum amount of rocking. This is the room here where I'm staying, and the guy from the United States is over there. He's from Los Angeles and he's a professional photographer who as been to the Antarctic before seeming like an awesome dude so I'll definitely be picking his brains. We've only just arrived and he's stepped out for a while. This looks like a great little cabin. I'll show you in here as well. This is the bathroom and loo. So this is going to be my home here on the Ocean Diamond over the next 13 nights I think it is, and this will get us all the way down to the Antarctic Peninsula and hopefully down to as far as the Antarctic Circle. This is something I've been waiting to do for many years, so here I am. Now I've got to finish unpacking, and soon we'll be departing. We're just about to depart, so I'm heading out for a good view, and I'm guessing the higher you go, the better the view. And we have departed. Well we're on our way now and Ushuaia is already a fair way off and we're making good progress. My understanding is we're heading down the Beagle Channel gradually turning around southward. Around sunrise we'll be passing Cape Horn so hope to be able to see that in the distance and then it's on through the Drake Passage towards Antarctica. We're on our way with Ushuaia well behind us already. I've been exploring the ship to get to know my way around. I'm going to give you a tour around the ship tomorrow or the next day (actually doesn't happen till much later in the trip) which means I've got to learn to find my way around it. It's going to be very quiet from now on having left the last outpost of civilisation heading out into the Beagle Channel. I'm just finishing the evening out on the bow of the ship. You can probably see out on the bow we are flying the Antarctic flag, the pale blue one. We're heading out along the Beagle Channel, named after Charles Darwin's ship when he sailed through here at some stage. There's the very bottom of Argentina over there. Then on the other side we have the remains of Chile. Ushuaia is almost completely gone now with the mountains still visible in the far background. There's quite a big weather system coming over. They reckon we're going to be able to stay ahead of it but let's see. Tierra del Fuego is now petering out in a bunch of small islands which are obviously carved out by the glaciers and I assume a big glacier came through here at one stage as well and out there quite some distance away will be the Cape Horn Island. We will be passing it around or before sunrise tomorrow morning so I'll get up early and see if I'm able to see it. It's over and out for tonight and onward as we head out the channel and turn southward towards the Antarctic Peninsula. |
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