last morning in Ushuaia

02/01/2015

The day kicked off with the familiar wake up call from Jonathan but nice and early. 6am to be precise. Bags were outside the cabin, and there was little left to do but have breakfast, say goodbyes, and disembark. It was strange saying goodbye to everyone, and there were hugs all round with all the staff. It does legitimately seem to mean a lot to them that they have this job and do make a connection with many of the passengers.

the morning view is not nearly as exhilirating

Our flight was not until 3pm, so we had the morning in Ushuaia. There was not much to see or do that we hadn’t already, so the day was simply going from one cafe to the next to chill out. We kept bumping into both crew and other passengers which made for a strange, and almost anti-climactic end to the trip.

ushuaia bakery treats

It came time to get on our shuttle to the airport, where we were greeted with the Argentine efficiency were were seeing a bit. For a small airport, it sure was a loooooong queue. We got to the airport about 2.5 hours ahead of time, and it seemed that some of our group only just made the flight. Oh well, we were now all Buenos Aires bound. Antarctica was officially all done.

Kate and I originally had dinner reservations for the night, yes another big steak dinner, but alas our flight was rescheduled while we were on the boat and pushed back a couple of hours, so sadly we couldn’t make it. Booo. Seems they are happy to change the times of flights happily enough over here. Makes planning a difficulty.

So we went straight to our hotel near the airport where we were both exhausted anyway. Try to get a good nights sleep before our morning flight tomorrow to our final Argentine destination.

reaching cape horn

01/01/2015

“Good morning everyone. It’s 7:30am and the weather is a balmy 8 degrees celcius. We have approached Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America.”

So spoke Jonathan in an impromptu wake up call. Since we had such a smooth passage over the Drake, our Captain chose a sailing path that took us much close to Cape Horn that we would ever had gone, another small reminder of the amazing captain and crew we have.

It was a buzz to see the southern most continental tip, being in Chile. We actually needed Chilean permission to enter we ended up that close. All this before breakfast on a quiet sailing day, and a very distinct reminder that we were going to be back in Ushuaia later today.

Today was another day of some lectures and formalities, with some farewells thrown in. First up was Scott introducing a short doco on the sailing around Cape Horn, and the life of a sailor in the 1920’s. They were all hard men.

The second lecture was by Gerard, who gave us a talk on his winter in Antarctica as resident chef in one of the British Antarctic Survey stations. This was probably my favourite talk of the entire trip, as he told his story that was equal parts about the history of food in Antarctic expeditions, but also his experiences and how he went about feeding 14 men during an 18 month stay.

It was quite incredible as he talked about the challenges of not just feeding them, but finding ways to keep their spirits up and how you stop everyone from going mad. It was an amazing insight to life on these stations, and from the chefs perspective made for a riveting tale.

Up next John ran a trivia session that was actually 40 pretty tough questions. We amassed a solid group, and thanks to our handy reference books (which were allowed!) we managed to answer many an obscure question about explorers and bases and the odd easy one about penguins and whales. We ended up with 32 out of 40… a bit of a ways off the winners at 38, but we were quite proud of the achievement.

the captain says goodbye

The night started to get more and more sad as we had a series of formal and informal farewells. First was the formal Captains farewell, where our amazing captain visited us all to wish us Bon Voyage. He had done a stellar job navigating the ice, sending us to other places, chasing whales that I can’t imagine it would have been better.

the awesome boat staff

There was also a series of farewells to all the crew, including engine room, deck hands, cabin staff, cooks and everyone. They had all done an amazing job, and got a deserved ovation. Farewells to the crew happened in a less formal way, with everyone doing the rounds during dinner.

the whole kayak team

sad farewell number 7412

Mark also called a final Kayak meeting for us all to run through photos and say a formal goodbye. We were a tight knit crew, and it was pretty sad but everyone was still buzzing from our kayaking experiences. Mark and Phil were the absolute best.

with the INCREDIBLE jonathan, our tour leader

All the informal farewells started happening in the Polar Bear bar, where Blaise was busting out a final set. About a third of the passengers were there and quite a few of the staff, having a final drink together. Again there were plenty of hand shakes and hugs to finish off the evening.

Well, the evening finished with some bag packing for the early morning disembarkation that awaited.