Packing Is Going To Be Tricky...
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 11 ~ January 24 ~ Drake Passage and arriving in Ushuaia
I'm not sure how much is purely a change in the wind and how much is because we're getting closer to the shelter of land, but this morning we're moving about a lot less.Amanda manages some breakfast and it stays down this time.
Me-An runs the onboard shop. She's lovely.
Well, ish... You remember I mentioned Amanda bought some things earlier? Me-An said, “I'll charge it to your husband's account.”
Hmmm...
It's lucky for both of them that I'm a sexist pig who can be swayed by a pretty smile!
Amanda is a little diffident, but able to make her way forward.
Oops, looks like there was some problem overnight. I have no idea whether a passenger fell over and took out the chair, or whether the sea was rough enough to cause the damage directly, but if I had to bet, I'd put my money on the former.
Conditions must be good; Amanda's taking pictures of interesting features in the lounge.
And even checking out the cartoons on a notice board.
A bit windy, but the sea is almost flat now we're approaching Ushuaia.
And I can hold my big lens still enough to take a picture of a seabird. One of the things I didn't bring because of the weight limits was a tripod, or even a monopod. That would certainly have been useful at times, and if we'd known how little of our serious wet/cold gear would be needed, I might have packed differently, but in reality it's not been a problem. For various reasons I have just lately been looking at some scans of pictures I took in Iceland in 1998 with fine-grain film and a tripod, and they are not as sharp as today's handheld digital pics!
We have some postcards.
We drop them here; the crew will drop them at the British Post Office at Port Lockroy when they are next there; from there they will travel to the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas, yeah, ok), then on to Blighty and thence to their final destinations in the rest of the world. We are told that they could take anything from a few weeks to two years to arrive!
Interesting blog about the Penguin Post Office here.
We share the load: I'll post some too.
I don't just post cards, I drink wine too! Versatile or what? The upper bistro which we prefer to the main dining room on the lower deck was closed in the rough seas, but now it's open for our last lunch here. Dinner is going to be a more formal farewell
Here is my Quark Expeditions parka laid out flat on the bed. I will now demonstrate a marvellous trick they have taught us.
You fold it in on itself...
Then start rolling it up...
And voilà, you tuck it inside its own hood and this is all the space it takes to pack!
Can't deny, it's a quality piece of kit.
So, before dinner we have drinks and some words from the captain and his officers.
We'll raise a glass to that.
The menu isn't quite clear enough to read easily at this resolution, but suffice to say that it sounds nice and there are some good seafood options there. A lot of, err, “international” dishes though...
I mean, seriously, would you go to the Antarctic to eat chimichanga or duck à l'orange when lobster served three ways is on the menu?!
Seafood starter: “Prawn, crabmeat and baby shrimp with three sauces: American cocktail, garlic sauce and sauce verte” according to the menu. Maybe a touch fussy?
Main course: Lobster tail, lobster risotto, lobster bisque, asparagus and tempura cauliflower.
If I'm being brutally honest, the food doesn't quite live up to its pretensions: it's good, don't get me wrong, but it's trying to present itself as high end haute cuisine and it doesn't quite reach that standard. That's one of the reasons we've generally eaten in the bistro as I mentioned earlier: it doesn't try so hard and thereby succeeds better.
Reality check: we've not eaten badly at all on this voyage! I'm being picky, no denying that, but as some of you will know, we rate a local tapas restaurant literally across the road from a Michelin-starred place in Esher as simply more enjoyable, never mind infinitely better value for money. And because it's a long time ago and far away, I'll name “Aux Armes de Champagne” (in Épernay, France) as a Michelin-starred restaurant that really was just not very good. We will certainly give a few marks for show, but for a maximum score we need the substance to match. I'll give this four out of five stars.
While we're eating, the whole hospitality team who aren't actively cooking or serving, give us a twirl!
Presumably these chefs were on starters or something.
The girl in the centre is Sabrine, our cabin attendant.
And here's the whole group.
And it's goodnight to everyone: tomorrow morning we disembark.
[Oh dear. The food was a bit too rich for poor Amanda. Looking forward to dry land again.]
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