Cruising the Atlantic Ocean (Saturday, March 17)

The seas were relatively calm early this morning, then got calmer.  A dense fog surrounded the ship until afternoon, necessitating the blowing of the ship's horn at regular intervals.   Checking my AIS (ship finder) app, we were not alone in the fog.

At noon the Captain announced that we would not be going to Punta del Este tomorrow.  His stated reason was unsafe tendering operations due to winds. 

Punta del Este is primarily a major resort.  According to Wikipedia, "The city is referred to as "the Monaco of the South", "The Pearl of the Atlantic", "the Hamptons of South America" and "the St. Tropez of South America", being also compared to Miami and Cannes." 

The following is the description of our tour tomorrow:

PUNTA DEL ESTE & CASA PUEBLO

Discover beautiful beaches, residential areas and a wonderful museum during this scenic orientation tour of Punta del Este Depart the pier for a drive along Rambla General Artigas and Peninsula Coast Road to the Atlantic Ocean beaches of Ingleses, Emir and Brava. Continue along the leafy residential areas such as Cantegril, San Rafael, Parque del Golf and Beverly Hills, where a stop will be made for a visit to the Ralli Museum This splendid private museum displays the paintings and sculptures of Latin American artists, including some sculptures by Salvador Dali.

After your museum visit, you'll rejoin your coach and drive past the striking hanging bridges of Barra de Maldonado, then along Pinares, framed by magnificent sea pines, to Punta Ballena. Upon arrival, you'll visit the famous Casa Pueblo, the residence, atelier and museum of late internationally-renowned artist Carlos Paez Vilaró. On the return journey to the ship, you'll drive along Mansa's beaches. Some free time for window-shopping may be available in the downtown area at Gorlero Avenue, time permitting.

In other words, we were on a potentially uninteresting tour of a fair weather destination.  Regardless of winds, given the high probability of thunderstorms all day long, Pam & I were pleased with the captain's decision to head directly to Montevideo, giving us an extra day there.

On the ship, every afternoon at 4:00, tea is served.  Today was a gala tea.  As a result, tea was moved from its usual venue in the forward lounge on he 10th deck to the main lounge on the 5th deck.  It was a gong show. 

The culinary staff had done a wonderful job in their preparations.  Management dropped the ball by providing no traffic flow pattern into the lounge.  The result was people arriving from all directions, standing in halls and on staircases waiting for the doors to open.  Elevators arrived full of people who had trouble getting off them.  Most, but by no means all, passengers were considerate of others.  Having been on a sister ship of SIRENA two years ago, Pam & I knew for a fact that the traffic flow could be done better. 

When the doors opened, I went in, took a few quick pictures and left - tea-less, cake-less and cookie-less.  I just wanted out of there (for which there was also no traffic pattern.  (Think of the movie 'Animal House' when the band marches into the dead-end alley.)  Thinking that I had beaten a hasty retreat, when I arrived at the 10th deck lounge that was almost deserted, Pam was already there.  We headed out to the pool deck to sit in the sun. In both places, it was interesting to watch other people arrive who had escaped the gala tea alive.

After a pleasant dinner and enjoying music by a string quartet, we headed off to bed to dream of water...in our basement.

Over the past few days, our 'team' back home has been dealing with flooding in our basement, with water 3" or deeper everywhere.  The flooding was caused by three recent major rain/snow storms raising the water table above floor level.  Most of the basement is not finished, but all of it is full of things on the floor that did not benefit from getting, and staying, soaking wet. I had pumps that could be used to get the water out, fans to keep air moving and a dehumidifier to wring moisture out of the air, so mitigation of the problem is underway, but remediation will be awaiting us upon our return home.  Ugh!

Cruising the Atlantic Ocean (Friday, March 16)

There were too many variables to ever know with certainty if the captain's decision to leave Stanley an hour early yesterday made any significant difference in our passage to Punta del Este in Uruguay.  On the flip side, it was absolutely certain that today started out lumpy and got more so.  By  mid-day the ship was shuddering its way through 15-foot seas.  According to an announcement, closing the weather (i.e. exposed) decks, the apparent wind was 35-40 MPH gusting to 60 MPH. 

The only observed metric I can provide is that plowing through the trough of the occasional larger wave, I saw spray hit the front windows of the forward observation lounge where I was sitting.  The lounge is on the 10th deck of the ship.

Passenger presence at meals and participation in events was reduced today, but not severely.

Towards evening things started getting a bit calmer.

Although I neglected to get a weather forecast and historical data is not yet posted, it would appear fortuitous that our itinerary did not call for visiting the Falklands today.  Every year some cruise ships have to abort their port call to Stanley because of weather.  We could have been one of them.

In general, the weather in much of South America changes significantly at this time of year.  As a result, in a number of recent ports , SIRENA has been the last cruise ship that will be making port calls for the next few months.

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands (Thursday, March 15)

SIRENA anchored in the outer harbor, necessitating a 20-minute tender time to the pier.  Having been here before and when preparing for this trip not found any tour that interested us, we went ashore on our own.  We had an enjoyable time just strolling along, mostly on the shore road (Ross Road [West]).  Walking up to see the second road back from the shore, we remembered that within Stanley, that which is worth seeing is on Ross Road to generally no further than one block back.

Christ Church Cathedral

Section of mizzen mast of SS GREAT BRITAIN

Governor's Residence

(yellow sign infers) "...because that's the driver's side - we're British!"

Falkland War Monuments

PELAGIC AUSTRALIS cruises

"Maybe this guide will tell me where to find a pink hat." she says.

Where I'm liable to be when she reads the previous caption.

Back aboard, we watched is S. Korean fishing vessel anchor.  She was a long way from home and indicative of primarily Asian fishing fleets that now roam every ocean of the world.

SIRENA hoisted anchor on schedule, wrapped around the top of East Falkland and shaped a course for Punta del Este, a two day, three night passage.  Clearing the headland, there was only a modest swell awaiting us.  If we were indeed due to meet some heavy weather, it was polite of the weather to delay the encounter until after we concluded dinner with some friends and went to bed.

Cruising the Atlantic Ocean (Wednesday, March 14)

At 11:00 PM last night, the pilot boat pulled alongside SIRENA.  The pilot disembarked.  SIRENA exited the east end of the Beagle Channel and entered the South Atlantic Ocean.  Thankfully, Mother Nature was not waiting with a rude surprise.

This morning we awoke to a temperature in the mid-forty's with partly cloudy skies and nothing more that a modest sea swell.  Mid-morning it clouded over.  We had a rain storm that ended with some slushy hail.  The skies returned to partly cloudy with bright sunlight.  We had a second iteration of clouds, rain, hail and back to sun before the day settled into a partly cloudy one.  

In the afternoon it was announced that we would be leaving the Falklands an hour early tomorrow because of an approaching weather front.  

We did not see another ship all day, although my cellphone AIS app indicated some at times less that 25 miles away; mostly fishing vessels.  There were several brief, distant whale sightings.

Ushuaia, Argentina (Tuesday, March 13)

Early morning found SIRENA cruising west along the Beagle Channel.

If Punta Arenas looked like Iceland (see yesterday's blog), Ushuaia looked like Norway.

Coming into the harbor, we had some puffy clouds surrounded by blue sky.  As we got closer to the dock, the sky clouded over with occasional periods of rain.  It seemed cruel that our entrance might have been the only opportunity to see the fantastic views. Thankfully, as the morning progressed, with increasing regularity clouds and rain were replaced with blue sky and sun.

 

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Today's Tour: END OF THE WORLD TRAIN & TIERRA DEL FUEGO NATIONAL PARK

Begin with a scenic drive to Central Station for an unforgettable trip on the Tierra del Fuego Southern Railway, Train to the End of the World. This railway uses the original narrow gauge line that was part of the small train for prisoners that ran until 1947.

Upon arrival at the Park Station, board your coach for a drive through Tierra del Fuego National Park to Lapataia Bay, marking the end of the road which is 2,010 miles from Buenos Aires. Here, a catamaran awaits you for your return to the ship via the Beagle Channel. On route, you will see the historic lighthouse, Les Eclaireurs, as well as Seal Island, Isla de los Lobos and Island of the Birds, whose names clearly express the rich wildlife you can view from the deck on your journey back to the ship.

- - - - -

We boarded a bus for the trip to the train station.  Along the way we passed the Ushuaia Golf Club - the southernmost (9 hole) golf course in the world.

At the Southern Fuegian Railway station, we boarded the Ferrocarril Austral Fueguino (FCAF) or the Train of the End of the World.  Each compartment on the train held six people.  It was cozy.  This was due to the narrow gauge track.

Our train was pulled by a steam locomotive purpose-built in Buenos Aires.  Rather than wood or coal, gasoline was used to create the steam.

Ushuaia was a penal colony.  Conditions were so harsh that as a sentence, it ranked one step below the death penalty.  Every day the prisoners rode the train to the forest where they cut trees into logs,  riding atop those logs on the trip back to the town at the end of the day.  The work went on year-round.  Prisoners cut down trees at 'ground level' which varied depending on the presence and depth of the snow. 

Although the prison was closed in 1962, the tree stumps were still visible and intact due to the climate.  The height of a stump indicated the time of year the tree was cut down.

The cutting was indiscriminate in a place on earth where tree growth is so slow that it takes over 80 years for one to achieve maturity.  One large clear-cut area is called the "tree cemetery", the stumps serving as headstones.  

After a ride of 7 kilometers, traveled at a sedate pace and with a stop along the way, we came to the end of the line.  Our bus was waiting.  We road along National Route 3 to its end and with it the southern end of the Pan-American Highway.  

We boarded a tour boat for the return trip to Ushuaia.  It was a scenic ride.  

At the mouth of Ushuaia harbor, the skipper brought our boat close to a small rocky island so that we could all admire the colony of cormorants.  While looking almost like penguins and hence more attractive than the variety that make such a mess of boats in Marion, my admiration was minimal.

We cruised a short distance further east along the Beagle Channel to the lighthouse - Les Eclaireurs  - at the mouth of Ushuaia's harbor.  The locals inaccurately call it "Faro del fin del mundo" (Lighthouse at the end of the world).  As one of our guides said, "Everything around here is called 'the end of the world' because we Argentinians have an ego and these things are the furthest south in our country."  It is accurately the furthest south on the mainland, but there is a lighthouse further east that is on an Argentine island off the tip of the continent.

NOTE: There is a rivalry among three communities about which is the furthest south.  Punta Arenas in Chile claims the title with the qualifier of biggest city, having a population of well over 100,000.  Ushuaia's qualifier is that it is the most southern city.  Puerto Williams, with a population of less than 3,000, claims it by latitude.  For some nebulous reason, I champion Ushuaia's claim.

After viewing the lighthouse, we circled an island littered with sea lions.

The boat then headed for the pier.

We tied up in front of a Russian icebreaker that was about to depart for the Antarctic with an unusual passenger manifest; runners going there to compete in a marathon as part of a quest to participate in one on all seven continents.

Without returning to our ship, Pam & I headed in town to look around. 

Ushuaia being on a mountainside, it was no surprise that from the shoreline all roads inland rose at a steep angle.  All the major roads we saw ran parallel to the shoreline.  

We walked along the city's main street - San Martin.  

In yet another "the southernmost...", we came to a Hard Rock Cafe.

I wanted a hat from there, but they had none in stock.

Monument to indigenous people of the region.

We boarded SIRENA, which sailed just before sunset.

Turning east into the Beagle Channel, SIRENA headed towards the Atlantic Ocean.