The Story of our trip to Rio, Iguazu and the Antartic with the MV FRAM, Feb. 09

[caramelo]

Ushuaia is a very easy town to see on your own, as nearly everything is concentrated in just one main street which is quite long, so you really don´t even need a map, just find and go along the street called “San Martín”.

It is a vert touristy town, maybe too much for the like of some people, but personally I loved it and I didn´t have time left over from the 5 hours which we had of free time to see it. I spent a lot of time taking photos of all the funny signs showing the distances to the other countries, and of penguins, etc. etc.

I even came across this Penguin selling Penguin cuddly toys:

and this one, jejeje:

These are images of the main street “San Martin”:

[caramelo]

Passing by the different shop windows, we saw how they were roasting some meat and we couldn´t resist the temptation so we had lunch at the “Moustacchio” Restaurant:

[caramelo]

We had the lamb done in the local style and it was really delicious and was very reasonably priced, being the equivalent of about 10€ per person.

It was quite funny as we were writing our postcards to send from the “End of the World” and we were using a pen which we had got from a cruise on one of the Costa ships, and if any of you know these Costa ship pens they are coloured yellow and blue which are the Costa colours. When the waiter saw my pen he was delighted and he told us that he himself was born in Buenos Aires, in the “Boca” area, where the famous football ground is, as that was where Maradona played, and the Boca colours are Yellow and Blue. When I saw that he was so enthusiastic about the pen I decided to give the pen to him.

After lunch we went to the post office to send our postcards. This is the post office building with a painted mural of the old jail and its prisoners:

We continued along the San Martín street looking at the different shops etc., and I bought some souvenirs:

Some of the clothes shops were funny:

[caramelo]

And another amusing sign:

 

 

 

And again the distances between the “End of the World”, Ushuaia and other countries:

 

One side:

 

 

And from the other side:

 

 

 

We also saw the sightseeing bus for Ushuaia:

 

 

 

When we were finished seeing everything, we looked for a supermarket as we wanted to buy some wine, beer and water for use in our cabin on board the ship, as we understood that, unlike other cruise ships, there is less entertainment at night on the ship, so at least this way we could enjoy a drink in our cabin at nights. It was quite funny as we found a lot of the ship passengers in this supermarket, all with exactly the same idea as us!!!

 

 

 

We returned to our coach bus, seeing our ship on the way, and we checked in at about 5pm:

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED....... the start of the Antarctic Expedition…………..

[janisutx]

Caramelo, your photos and comments are wonderful. Buenos Aires and Ushuaia are were two of my favorite ports. Sorry your hotel was not up to the NH Groups usual standards. I loved their Hotel Jazz in Barcelona. The Splendor did look huge next to the Fram but we were all excited to see the ships in port going to Antartica. We did the Beagle Channel catamaran cruise and walked Ushuaia as you did. We were not able to sail until 11:00 pm due to the high winds that suddenly appeared in the late afternoon.

[Alter Ego]

I check for your updates daily and cannot wait until your next installment. Your pictures have already been amazing, yet I know I haven't seen anything yet!!

 

Thanks for sharing!! :)

[caramelo]

Thanks Janis.....and Alter Ego.....here is the next installment:

 

The check-in was done very quickly directly and without queues in the reception area of the ship and within less than half an hour we had finished all the different procedures: the check-in itself, registering the credit card, we saw the ship´s doctor to give him our medical certificates which stated that we were capable physically of doing an expedition trip of this kind, and we collected our jackets and a book about the Antarctica which were given to us as a present from the Hurtigruten company.

The ship was much nicer than we had expected and it is practically new as it was inaugurated in 2.007.

The cabins, which we know were going to be small and basic and ours which was the most inferior category, but they were much more practical and comfortable than we thought, as there were 4 wardrobes with 2 doors with a lot of storage spacenand there was an area to store the suitcases out of the way where they didn´t disturb us, and even if they don´t look like it but the beds were actually really comfortable and we slept very well (except for the Drake Passage and that wasn´t the fault of the beds!). The photos make the cabins look basic but they were really quite comfortable.

 

An interior cabin:

[caramelo]

And an exterior one:

And these are some of the instalations and comunal areas of the ship:

And this picture reminded us of our destination:

This was one of my favourite areas, the Observation Lounge, which was really confortable, and you could sit and watch the glaciers and icebergs from inside nice and warm without having to go outside in the cold, and there were telescopes etc. The ship is extremely well prepared for this purpose:

[caramelo]

The reception area:

Can you imagine sitting here watching the icebergs with the cold outside and here nice and cosy reside the fireplace!!!

[caramelo]

The gymnasium:

The restaurant:

And other areas:

[caramelo]

The internet corner:

 

 

 

 

 

 

For an Expedition type of ship it is really very nice and well equipped.

 

 

 

At approximately 7:20pm the ship departed from Ushuaia.

 

You could read the painting on the wall “Ushuaia fin del mundo principio de todo – Ushuaia end of the world beginning of everything”

 

 

 

 

 

We left the Carnival Splendor behind in Ushuaia:

 

 

[caramelo]

And leaving Ushuaia we passed the Star Princess which was arriving:

At 8:45pm we had the emergency drill. We had done this many times on other ships but this time it was different as being an expedition trip and not a normal cruise there is more risk, so there were important things which we needed to know.

At 9:30 we had the welcome cocktail with the Captain and the presentation of the chips staff:

And the Expedition Team:

We were very tired and we were also feeling the ship´s movement, although we were very lucky as we had waves of only 4 to 5 meters when in this area it is normal to have double so high. Even so, as it is a smaller ship you notice more the movement.

[caramelo]

Wednesday, the 25th of February.

A day at sea crossing the Drake Passage.

I was afraid before starting this trip because of what I had read about the “Dreaded Drake Passage” and the images which I had seen on internet, where you can have waves of up to 10m etc., like this one which is NOT one of my photos:

They say that “The Drake Pasaje is the price that one pays to visit the Antarctica, you pay it in 2 installments, one on the way there and one on the way back, and that some pay a higher price than other”, but I must say that were were exterrmy lucky and had to pay a very low price!!!

We took advantage of these days to use the washing machines on the ship to wash the clothes which we had used on the trip before arriving, in Rio, Iguazu etc. The washing area was perfect. There are 4 washing machines and plenty of dryers. All you needed was a token (coin) which cost 1,50€ for a complete wash and dry. The rest of the day we spent getting to know the ship, and we used the internet a little. That night we slept better than the previous one.

Thursday, the 26th of February.

When we got up the movement of the ship was a lot better and there was a lovely blue sky.

We had an obligatory talk which lasted about 90 minutes about the instructions, rules and behaviour ashore on land to respect the animals and their environment. For example you can not go closer that 5 meters towards the penguins…… but there is no rule to say that they can not come to you….. in that case you just sit quiet and wait and they generally come!

At 4pm the ship arrived and anchored at the “Half Moon” Island.

The location of Half Moon Island:

Our Daily Programme aboard the ship on the day of Half Moon Island:

These were our first sightings of the glaciers arriving towards the island:

[caramelo]

And the images from inside the ship in the Observation Lounge:

We arrived at the point where the ship drops its anchor and from there these were the views of Half Moon Island:

In total we were divided into 8 groups of 32 persons and were called over the ships interphone with small intervals between each group. For example they called first group one, then an interval,group 2, interval, group three and then a break of half an hour, and then the groups 4, 5 y 6 with intervals and another break in between, and our group was the last, number 8, so we were called at 7pm.

The first day when you go ashore you need a lot more time because you don´t know how everything works and you also take time to find out the right size for your boots etc., for example I normally take the European shoe size 39 but considering that I had 2 pairs of heavy socks on well I first tried one size larger, size 40, too big, then 39, 38 and finally my correct size was actually a 37, but all this takes a lot of time

The boots are kept in a communal area, and you take one pair of your size and in their place you leave your normal shoes, and when you come back afterwards then you collect your shoes and place the boots back in their place.

Here is a list of the different sizes according to the different countries:

[caramelo]

You go ashore in small motor boats called “Polar Cirkel” which are stronger and easier to get in and out of than the zodiac boats as you have handrails etc.

In the end were were amongst the last 4 people to go on land, at 7.15pm. We had one hour until 8:15pm to go and see what we wanted. There were areas limited off with cones (like traffic cones) marking the areas where we couldn´t pass and one of the Expedition Team was always there to inform us of where we could go and what we could find in each different area. The information was always very complete

Our first image was seeing loads of penguins, most of them were very quiet and still and didn´t move much, but just watched us, but there were some who were walking in the typical funny walk that penguins have, they were so funny waddling and jumping down from the different levels of the rocks. There aren´t any words to explain what we felt at that moment.

We mainly saw the “chinstrap” penguins, the name is quite obvious and comes from the black line which goes from one side of his FACE to the other below his nose which makes it look that he is smiling! :

[caramelo]

And with the ice in the background:

And then we saw some seals in the distance.

With a penguin watching them

[caramelo]

This looks like somebody skubadiving …… but it is actually a seal:

 

 

 

 

And we saw some Skua birds (enemy of the penguins):

 

 

 

 

Later there was a couple of penguins who started to walk from far away towards us, but they were so funny how they walked, and they came so close that they nearly touched our legs passing by us. You can not appreciate this from the photos but it was a very special moment.

 

 

 

 

 

We not only saw the “chinstrap” penguins but also saw some “Gentoo” penguins and you can tell the difference by the orange coloured feet and beak:

 

 

[caramelo]

Before we left, I saw this image which I liked of the penguin reside the old boat:

And even better with our ship, the MV Fram, in the background:

Every passenger went back to the ship with a smile of happiness on their faces.

Before entering back onto the ship our boots were disinfected:

We had a shower and went for dinner and afterwards enjoyed a relaxing time looking a tour photos and video and preparing for the following day…… the adventure had only just begun!

TO BE CONTINUED ……………………

[caramelo]

Friday, the 27th of February.

We were warned the evening before about the possibility of seeing whales between 6:30 and 7am but that this wasn´t guaranteed, but just in case….. we set our alarm clock for 6:30am. We didn´t see any whales but some of the other passengers did see one but just very briefly.

However we were not sorry that we had got up so early as the scenery at this time of the morning was fascinating and we were very lucky with the good weather and the sea was so calm that it was like a mirror.

See these images:

We saw a group pf penguins jumping in the water very near our ship:

[caramelo]

And more scenery:

We anchored before the Cuverville Islands at 8:30am and the first group went ashore.

Today they started with group number two, they call the groups on a rotating system which is fair as then it is not always the same groups who go first or last.

When we arrived ashore….. the penguins were already waiting for us .. you can see how close the come to our boat:

The penguins in Cuverville are the “Gentoo” type with the orange coloured beaks and feet.

[caramelo]

We got to go on land at about 10:40am and I calculate that this time we were there for quite a bit longer than an hour. Everything was so beautiful!

There were loads of penguins everywhere but they were totally different to the ones we had seen the day before.

They were very active and there were a lot of baby penguins. The babies were as tall as the adults but they were easy to recognise first because of their fluffy hair which they are now losing so they have patches with fluff and other patches without, and you could also recognise them by their infantile way of playing, runny around and crying with their mouths open running after their mother looking for her to give them food, etc.

[caramelo]

We saw some very nice and tender scenes with the mothers feeding the young, and the penguins with the icebergs in the background, etc.

[caramelo]

And these general images:

And with our ship in the background:

Some seals:

[caramelo]

And we saw other penguins jumping in the water:

It had been a total dream and today we had the lottery with the weather. On the way back to the ship we were taken first on the “polar circle” boat for a drive around the different icebergs:

[caramelo]

Our slip lifted up the anchor at about 1pm and we spent around 2 hours navigating through the Errera Channel, where we were able to enjoy some magnificent scenery and views. It all seemed so unreal and you can not believe that you are seeing this you’re your own eyes.

We saw some seals enjoying the sunshine lying on the top of an iceberg:

More scenery: