Snow and sleet at Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego where we spent the Ushuaia Turnaround Day.
“Turnaround Days’ are days when the ship disgorges most of its passengers and takes on new ones. There were six Turnaround days on this voyage (Ushuiara, Valparaiso, Fort Lauderdale, New York, Toronto and Milwaukee), with the first one taking place in Ushuaia. With only 30 of us going the entire distance to Milwaukee, we saw a lot of new faces on the evenings of Turnaround days, and, as a result, as time went on, we bonded closer with those who were familiar faces — the other 30 passengers who were “Worlders” going all 65 days with us, and the ship’s officers.
Turnaround Days are really hard days for the officers and crew. Beginning the night before, luggage has to be collected from the hallways, and then after docking the following morning, all of the luggage has to be moved to shore and sorted. The cabin crews have to tear into all of the rooms being vacated, remake beds, re-stock toiletries, vacuum, and that might be easy if each cabin crew member didn’t have 15 or 20 rooms that had to be ready for new passengers who would be boarding as early as 11 am.
Meanwhile, all of the new passengers coming on board have to be processed, given cards to their rooms, be given the life preserver and lifeboat briefings and more.
On the docks replenishing of food stuffs and other needed items was underway which had to be sorted, accounted for and stored. Bunkering (fueling) also might be underway — and all this activity was bracketed by a time lock of the ship having to surrender its berth and return at sea usually around 6 pm.
That’s why they would round up a bus and get all 30 of those us us continuing onward off the ship and out from underfoot for the day. On Turnaround Days the thirty of us were always lured off the ship with exclusive, sometimes sumptuous outings, just for us. That bus we were carted off on only returned to the ship late in the afternoon when the coast was clear and when the Octantis was bundled up and ready to sail — and sail we would, often within a half hour of when we returned.
On the bus and moving early on Turnaround Day / Ushuaia, long before any new passengers were in sight.
Viking paid for our tickets and lunch on Turnaround days. From a weather standpoint the Ushuaia Turnaround day would be the worst weather we experience until we got to Mackinac Island in Wisconsin where it was freezing cold. Mackinac was colder, in fact, than any of our days in Antartica.
The post office at the end of the world in the Park. For two bucks you could write your friends and tell them you had been here. We didn’t have two bucks.
This sign should get everybody oriented as to where they are, but only if they think in terms of kilometers.
A kilometer is 5/8 of a mile.
You do the math.
For lunch we were taken to Alakush after touring the Park by bus. Alakush has a small museum, great food and a charming gift shop.
A penguin mannikin wears a apron for sale in the gift shop.
Bundled up, snug in my Viking jackets and covered with snow in Tierra del Fuego on Turnaround Day / Ushuaia.
Besides giving all Antartica passengers Red jackets, and Blue jackets that fit inside the Red jackets, Viking crew all also wore red jackets. That meant that in Antartica almost everybody wore red jackets. But, because only passengers who went to the Antarctic were given Red jackets, fewer and fewer passenger Red jackets were seen as the cruise went along and other passengers who had not gone to Antartica came on board.
So, eventually, with only the crew and the few remaining Antartica passengers like us, other passengers seeing us in Red jackets (as in rain, high winds and on the zodiacs and shore), began mistaking us for crew and asking questions.
Late in the voyage, at Niagara Falls, a passenger stalked up to me and demanded to know onethingoranither, and when I replied that I did not know, he became angry and snapped, “then what good are you?”
I should have pointed the guy seven blocks up the hill and told him to turn left for a quarter mile. We’d have never HIM on the ship again.
Tierra del Fuego is shown on the map above the Red Dot.
Early evening back at Sea. We are leaving the Beagle Channel and returning to the South Atlantic Ocean.
By early the next morning ( 7:40 am ) we were again rounding Cape Horn on our way west to one of the most beautiful places in the world, one of my favorites — the Chilean fjords.
Cape Horn (“C de Hornos”) bottom central of the map. Cape Horn is located on Isla Hornos (Horn Island). This map gives you a better idea of what the neighborhood at the very bottom of South America looks like.
Diary 2023 