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| At The Guardians |
Yesterday we spent the late afternoon reading and writing. Then to the Glass House for prinks and dinner with a wine flight. As it was formal night and we were all dolled up, two people referred to Gabrielle as a fairy in her pink flowery party frock. She then went on to be a fairy godmother to Janice with some relationship advice.
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| Enjoying the roar of the wake |
No dramas, just observations in today’s account. After our busy three days on land, it was rather nice to know we would be back at sea for a day. Last night we had a swifty prink at The Glass House and a lovely chat with the staff to find out what they’d been up to for the day, a simple meal in the main restaurant and then back ‘home’ for our viewing pleasure and a quiet evening.
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| Enjoying a morning glass of wine (or two, or three) |
A quiet meal yesterday evening before retiring to bed. The BBC iPlayer app decided that it didn’t like being wherever we were in the world and so we were not allowed to watch the next episode of This is Going To Hurt. Frustrating.
“Place of Calm Water” as Coquimbo translates, dawned grey and drizzly which is fairly normal along the coast. The name was a slight misnomer when the tsunami hit in 2015 and devastated four city blocks with a 5-metre high wave.
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| San Antonio port before dawn |
After the excitement of the bridge visit we needed to gather our thoughts and reflect on our experiences. Gabrielle wrote her blog post and then we got it posted with relative ease, considering we were 40 miles off the coast of Chile.
We headed out to deck 7 - the Promenade Deck - and set off for our seven laps. There were very few people around and there was a marked contrast between the starboard side which was in shadow and deserted and the port side which was bathed in early evening sunshine. The sea rushed past us, literally at a rate of knots and, do you know, all was well with the world. A simple dinner, a quiet night and early to bed prior to a 5:45am get up.
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| Reading in the warm sunshine |
As yesterday evening progressed, so the seas got more heavy and the weather closed in. The scheduled acrobats were postponed until this afternoon as the stage was deemed too unsafe for precarious balancing. We were not to be deterred though and Gabrielle, with trusty bands, braved the rigours of dinner really well. We were alarmed to see that nearly all staff have taken to wearing face masks and it’s evident that there are some cases of COVID-19 on board. This will come home more strongly if they decide that guests have to wear masks in the public spaces - here’s hoping that doesn’t happen. At the same time as all this, there was no internet since almost immediately after posting last night’s blog post, because the ship would not stay in the same orientation for more than five seconds at a time.
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| The Pio XI Glacier |
Posh frocks and James Bond suit ready, we set off to Anderson’s for our evening perambulate and more to the point, an alcoholic beverage. Anderson’s reminds us of a sedate, rather stuffy Gentleman’s Club, so isn’t our first choice, but I wanted a specific drink which they don’t serve in the Glass House.
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| The Amalia Glacier |
We were late back from our trip yesterday evening, so we were all behind hand with getting ready for dinner. We missed the Beatles tribute band at prinks then after dinner couldn’t be bothered for another theatrical extravaganza. The wine had seemed stronger than usual and so we bedded down - actually I fell asleep while reading - and the ship bounced through the open waters of the Pacific.
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| Touching the foot of the statue on Hernando Magellan's memorial |
I started my blog session from my bed of pain. I’d been holding it together, though it was touch and go. I stoically gathered together last night’s attire in readiness to go to the restaurant. I’d already declared to Nick that he’d be drinking on his own. As we started coming out of the fjords and heading briefly back into the sea, a force 8 made movement around the ship pretty tricky. I then started returning to my original whiter shade of pale. Ooohhhh sounds like a great name for a song! Spray was flying past our balcony and we’re on deck 10.
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| Glacier-spotting at 5:45am |
Last night we decided to opt out of the world and had omelettes and chips in the cabin. We didn’t even go out to the gaucho show, but stayed at home, reading. There comes a point when you just have to stop! Then it was off to bed because the Captain had notified us that Chilean glaciers would be visible on the starboard side (our side) from 6am. So alarms were set for 5:45am.
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| Gabrielle and Nick at the End of the World |
Once in our finery, we minced off to The Glass House. We were ooooohhhhhhed and arrrrrrrrrhhhhhed over with lots of questions from Janice if all had been ok on our last visit as she had not seen us since our renewal of vows evening and had everything been ok? We had to assure her that all had been more than ok, it was simply that we were desperately trying to keep the alcohol intake to a reasonable level. And failing fairly spectacularly, it has to be said.
Once we left Montevideo behind, to a beautiful sunset, it was something of a relief that the wind picked up, bringing with it cooler temperatures. It was lovely to have a bath after the heat of Montevideo. As we were both still full after our lunch extravaganza, we just had an apple in the evening and gave going out, a miss.
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