Saturday, November 10, 2007 in Ushuaia, Argentina
We are on the National Geographic Endeavor–and on our way to Antarctica! It’s 8:22p in Chicago/Nashville, 11:22p here.
We left Santiago this morning for Ushuaia, Argentina–where we boarded the ship around 5:30p. There are about 110 passengers and maybe 50 crew/staff. The ship has internet access/wireless too, a library with 24 hour tea/coffee access, a dining room, bar/lounge, steam room, massage room, workout room, oh…and 4 lifeboats, each can hold 50 passengers. Our cabin is #224…port side (on the left, in the direction of travel). Remember “There’s no PORT LEFT”. 🙂
We’ve seen the lifeboats, learned how to put on and deal with the life vests, unpacked our stuff, and are now about to get some sleep–hopefully. The wind was bad in Ushuaia–delaying our start for about 30 minutes. We left port about 7pm. Now, as we near the end of the Beagle Channel, and prepare to make a right hand turn into the Drake Passage, the ship is starting to rock, roll and pitch–or as the director said, “side-to-side and various other directions”. They are predicting 6 foot swells. Holding on is important, as is putting things away tightly to avoid falling objects. We’ll be at sea for about 2 days. Hopefully reaching the South Shetland Islands by Sunday night….and getting into 19 hours of daylight, 5 hours of sunset/sunrise.
We’ve just seen headlights out our 2 little portholes twice now…of other fishing boats passing by. Really dark out there now otherwise. Sun didn’t go down until about 9:15 though.
So here are a few photos. I need to get to bed before I start getting motion sick! I can hear the motor changing rhythm a bit…and I can hear waves just outside the window!
Good night!
Carol and Bryan
