Leaving Santiago - next stop Stanley, Falkland Islands
Friday, 4th December - last day in Santiago & final packing: Straight after breakfast I check out of room 601 and into room 212, and then head out with Mauricio and the driver to explore Santiago for half a day. Our first stop is the home of the Cosina family – a very wealthy family who lived in Santiago in the mid 1800s. From there we go to the Pre-Columbian Museum and see wonderful old artefacts, including weavings. Our last stop is the Museum of Fine Arts, a small gallery, but one that showcases modern Chilean art.
It’s been good to see these different sides of Santiago, but I’m now itching to head south.
Back in room 212 in the early afternoon, I’m surprised that Virginia, my “roomie” for the next 4 weeks, has not yet arrived. A few moments later, a phone call from Reception informs me that I’m in the wrong room! She had been in the hotel for a couple of days after all (I had asked). So I move once more and meet Virginia from Newcastle (Australia), who is about to embark on her 10th polar voyage (8 previous Antarctic and 1 North Pole).
At around 6:30pm we go to the “meet & greet” function at the hotel and meet our fellow travelers. As is always the case at this stage, everyone is feeling a little awkward, but we do meet a couple of wonderful guys from Miami, and enjoy dinner with them at a local Japanese restaurant where we sat outside, eating a very nice meal and enjoying the Chilean summer evening.
Back at the hotel, we decide to check out before going to bed because of tomorrow's early start, the general lack of organisation in the hotel, and the numbers that will be checking out - but this is the longest check-out known to mankind. For the man ahead of me, it takes about 30 minutes. Mine is fortunately not too long, but the line behind keeps growing. We’re in bed around 11pm, with the alarm set for 4am & the promise of a wake-up call.
Saturday, 5th December - a long, long day: Being dog-tired, I’m asleep quickly, although waking every hour to check the clock. Fortunately I have my two back-up alarms – one is my Blackberry and the other is me – the hotel alarm never happened. We’re up on time, bags outside by 4:30 and down to breakfast at around 4:45. It’s good to see most of the other people in the dining room having an early breakfast – amazing how many can eat a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, and pancakes and syrup before 5 in the morning! Maybe they knew something we didn’t – and maybe we should have taken advantage of this.
We meet people from Germany, Switzerland, China, Italy, UK, US & Australia. Slightly concerning is the fact that many of the non-English speaking people don’t really understand what is being said to them. And it’s also becoming evident that many don’t enjoy queuing, preferring to push to the front. C’est la vie – it is a long trip & we’re all going to have the opportunity to see and experience wonderful things.
Check-in at the airport is chaotic because LAN has assigned only 2 people to process our group of 109 people (including the 5 Quark crew travelling with us). LAN finally realizes that the plane will be running late if they don’t do something, so they bring in 2 more people. The last people are checked in and at the gate 10 minutes before the flight is due to leave.
Our LAN A320 heads south to Punta Arenas, Chile, following the Andes. The views from both sides of the plane are magnificent – soaring snow-capped mountains, & glaciers slowly making their way towards lakes strewn with little white dots, that are probably very big icebergs.
During the 3 hour flight, we’re offered tea, coffee, juice or plain water and a snack box of 3 assorted bikkies. Sadly we're offered the same options for the 1½ hour flight to Stanley, & with no food available at Punta Arenas during our stopover, we are all mightily hungry by the time we land in Stanley at 3pm!
We’re bussed into Stanley and given instructions on where to meet for our transfer to the Kapitan Khlebnikov (KK). And this is when we receive the first of the not-so-good news: the KK is anchored in the bay, but the seas are too rough to take us by Zodiac from the dock. So we’re going to have to go most of the way by launch, and then the final 50 meters by Zodiac.
This means that all my careful packing to ensure that my laptop, camera and lenses are safe needs to be re-done so that I can carry the fragiles on my back and have the crew transport the remaining hand luggage. These & our checked bags will be in our cabins – hopefully!
Once I’ve worked out how I’m going to do this, Virginia, Suzette and I head down the street to see what we can find. First stop is the Penguin Shop – anything with a penguin motif can be seen and bought here – time to enjoy some last retail therapy for a while!
Next stop is the “about to close” supermarket – it’s getting on to 5:30pm now. But when we explain that we haven’t eaten anything but 6 cookies since breakfast at 4:30am (same time zone), the women running the store take pity, and we race in and each buy a £5 sandwich. It fills the spot.
Back to the dock for the ride across to the KK – the temperature is dropping and the wind speed is rising, so we’re all feeling quite cold as we wait, and wait, and wait for our turn to get onto the launch. Maybe being pushy would be a good thing right now!
Once we’re on the launch it’s warm & bumpy. The transfer via Zodiac is made – and up the long, steep gangway I go to finally be in the warmth of the KK, and cabin 520 on deck 5. Yay – all our luggage has arrived! It’s now around 8:30pm - we do some very basic unpacking, and since Virginia knows her way around the ship, we’re soon in the dining room enjoying hot, hearty soup.
With everyone on board, we’re told the next not-so-good news. Because of the high winds, the KK has not been able to be refueled, and once the process starts, it will take 12-14 hours. Refuelling is done from a “bunkering” ship, a fuel tanker that comes alongside.
Shane, our Expedition Leader, explains that at about 4am tomorrow we will up-anchor and sail to another bay, where the bunkering ship will come alongside and refuel. We’re unlikely to leave Stanley until late Sunday night. He also tells us that the weather in the Drake Passage is “high winds and big swells”. At this point I’m starting to really believe that the “Drake Lake” is a myth!
With a Phenergan on board (I thought we were leaving that evening), I sleep very well, only woken by the slight movement of the ship when we move from one bay to the other and tie up alongside the bunkering ship. The thought crosses my mind that if the KK moves around like this in a fairly sheltered bay, it really will be a wild ride across the Drake!