Punta Arenas, Chili, and another group tour. We were told to meet in the Art Gallery at 7:45, so we set the alarm for 7 and ordered room service for 7-7:30.
At 6:48 the breakfast arrived. We were still moving, and the bridge cam showed that there were 32 nautical miles and we were moving at about 8 knots. Figured we had lots of time so we ate and leisurely got ready. At about 7:35 the ship stopped, but it sure didn't look like we were in port. Then I remembered this was a tender port. Yup, moments later, the captain got on the speaker and told us that we were moored, the tenders were down and we could start going ashore as soon as the locals cleared us. We quickly got ready and headed down just a few minutes late. However, the Art Gallery was empty. After a moment or two of wandering around, we decided we should catch the next tender, and meet our group on shore.
And that's exactly what happened. We weren't too worried since the meeting time per the tour company was 8:50, and we were on the tender by 8. When we arrived, they started calling to get the drivers so that we could start.
In this case, there were 18 people on the tour and thus there were two vans. However, we only had one guide. The plan was that he'd be in one van on the way out and the other on the way back. He was in our van first.
We took off and the first stop was the driver's house (huh?) - he ran in and ran out - probably a restroom break would be my guess.
After that we headed out of town along the coast. There was a treat on our way to our first stop - dolphins right near the shore. The driver stopped so we could take pictures.
This is one of Glen's pictures. Turns out, he's better at this stuff than me.
Our first official stop was a marker that marks the north south geographic center of Chile. You may be curious about this as Punta Arenas is at the southern tip of Patagonia. Apparently Chile claims a pie slice of Antarctica from the coast to the south pole. If you count that, and the non territorial waters in between, it would be. Our conclusion? Presumptive.
It's hard to see from the picture, but that pie slice at the bottom is Antarctica all the way to the South Pole.
We piled back into the vans and headed to our next stop - a monument at "Hunger Bay" (actually, starvation bay) - a location where early settlements had failed.
And the monument at Starvation Bay.
After that we stopped at a bay to watch some fishing boats go out and them loading some seaweed (poisonous apparently) to go to Japan for cosmetics use or something.
The next stop was the main attraction - Fort Bulnes. It was named for the president of Chile at the time it was built in 1843 by the first Chileans to sail there and claim the Straights of Magellan and surrounding lands for Chili. There's a few buildings there, but the fort itself is a reproduction. There's a marker in the actual location, but the gate to it is closed for construction.
A view of the fort.
Some of the buildings at the fort.
Another view, with a rainbow. I wasn't quite sure how we got that, since it hadn't actually rained.
After the fort we went to a mineral water factory. The building design is supposed to represent a glacier. Apparently, our guide also works there part time. They have a very nice tasting room (with a snack bar and small gift shop) and gave us all a sample.
That's the building. Does it represent a glacier? Draw your own conclusion.
After sampling, we took a roughly one mile round trip nature walk (up a fairly steep hill) to an overlook where we could see much of the Straights of Magellan. I remembered that in about 3rd grade I did a report on Magellan. I never imagined that several years later (OK, lots of years later) I'd be looking down on the route he sailed that was named for him. Amazing really.
And there it is, from the overlook.
After the walk, we went back to town and had our driver drive us through downtown by their central plaza to see what it was like. We decided we didn't want to walk back there, so we got the tender back to the ship. By the time we were done, the winds had picked up considerably.and the tender ride back was, for lack of a better term, interesting. The tenders were bouncing up and down. If you don't get seasick, it was kind of fun.
When we got back to the ship, we dropped our stuff in our room and went to lunch at the buffet, our only choice at that time. After that we relaxed for a bit and then I went to trivia. Glen was feeling sniffly, so he stayed in the room. After trivia, I went up to the Elite lounge and hung out with some cruise critic friends. While there, we saw a tender actually send up a flare - our guess was a power issue since it stalled. Eventually, though, it made it back to the ship. (I later learned that the flare got wet, and that deploys it automatically. Although, there were a couple of stories running around the ship about it.)
The rest of the evening wasn't particularly exciting. Dinner, a bit of dance and bed.
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