Friday, January 29, 2010
4:30 pm… The last post from the road
We are madly packing… stuffing stuff into bags recovered from under the bed… We will have our “last supper” in a little over an hour… sometime tonight we will put our bags outside in the hall… Tomorrow about 8:00 the ship should dock in Valparaiso, and an hour or so later, having cleared Chilean customs we will go ashore to claim our bags, and find Christian our tour guide for our last day of sightseeing before flying home…
There is an island off to Starboard… it is said to have been the home of the Moca Dick, the great white whale on whom Moby Dick was based… These waters are the historic home of the sperm whale… so far we haven’t seen any… (or Blue whales, or unicorns…)
With packing comes our colored luggage tags, embarkation assignments, and the dreaded service questionnaire… This time the questionnaire is easy… the ship’s staff did very well… with a few really minor exceptions we are giving them the highest score… There are compliments by name for several… our wine steward, our room stewards, an officer cadet, Henry Jones, who set up a table with photos and maps and met with passengers and answered questions about Antarctica… The ship’s resident experts… an ice pilot, a geologist, and experts on local culture and Antarctica who’s presence and knowledge elevated the experience beyond just a cruise… It’s easy to fill out surveys when all is good…
I am finishing off my bottle of single malt, Tina her port, no use in letting it go to waste after all…
Now, an hour before dinner… most of the packing is done… Tina’s cell phone is on the charger... we will need it Sunday… We still have a few things to stuff in… mostly dirty socks and underwear… we have our luggage scale out, weighing each bag as we add more, trying to balance the load, and stay under 50 lbs a bag (weight being a bigger issue than volume)… Trying to carry on as little as possible… we have a 4th bag, a duffle bag as a backup… but we are trying to cram all into 3 bags…
Before that we get silly… we have dinner followed by the traditional parade of the Baked Alaskas… We go to the show room for the last show… Name that song… our Toby wins the women’s round… then dresses like Dolly Parton for a finale… Tina gives away drinks… we have punches on our drink cards… it’s a last night party in the best sense…
We return to our cabins… the full moon is up, We stand on the balcony gazing northward…
I take Karin up to see the Southern Cross…
After 20 days we are ready for it to end… to go home… to friends, family, animals, and (gasp) work…
We have gone 6,528 nautical miles… From Rio De Janiero to Valparaiso… We have visited Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Falkland Islands, Antarctica, and Chile… We have seen 5 kinds of penguins… 3 or 4 kinds of whales… We have traveled… I have blogged x times, about 11,000 words (about 23 pages…)
Next… (once home)
I still need post pictures… I need to write a review of the cruise for cruisecritics.com…
And of course, I need to start planning my next adventure… probably Washington DC again… likely mid March… Mostly research, but I need to spend so time in North Umberland County VA… (one of my family origin points…) Tina has us booked on another HAL cruise in November to celebrate our anniversary… Brian and I plan a walk about somewhere in the arid west this summer… Brian and his shipmates are talking about another “Tiger” cruise on his destroyer in a year or so… Tina wants to visit Egypt… Her Step mother wants us to join her in Thailand and Laos in June 2011… Travel will continue… the blog will continue…
Randy
Enjoyed reading your blog on S America. I'll be on the Veedaam next year at this time with a MacMania Geek tour. If I may ask, how much did you spend altogether on shore excursions? If you had to opt out of one of your penguin tours which would you drop and think about replacing with some other kind of tour?
ReplyDeleteGlad you are all back safely. I heard from Tanya. I loved reading your blog.
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