2025 South America cruise on Regent

 I'm a bit late posting this, but we've had a busy few days. We were called off the ship at around 8:45 am and made our way through Customs to find our bus.  We had a "full day" tour of Santiago and then drop off at the airport.  The bus was comfortable for the 90 minute drive to Santiago.  We passed through a wine valley on the way there where they grow the carmenere grape.  Then a stop at the Catholic cathedral on the main square. A map of Santiago from the very early days. No more photos as there was a service going on and it didn't seem appropriate, but it is a lovely cathedral.  Interestingly, we watched 2 men being brought out of the church in handcuffs by the local police.  A woman who was inside said they were arrested after coming back from communion.   Then we made a stop at the government square before going for lunch on our own.  A little more driving around before heading off to the airport where we were dropped off around 4...

 Today is our last full day of the cruise.  Jasmin in Compass Rose knew it was Michael's birthday (well, he had mentioned before that he would be doing something "special" on his birthday instead of his usual avocado toast without the fried egg.)  He often has a cronut also, and she would hold one out for him each morning.  This morning she brought it like this: That's a real candle, so he made sure to blow it out quickly.  Flames on board are seriously frowned on, of course.  But they do it for special occasions in the dining rooms. We had a nice lecture by Miguel about why color is important in the plant and animal world.  Very interesting, and while I knew some of it, I still learned a lot.  Then Terry Bishop gave his last lecture of this cruise segment about Robert Cochrane, a British Admiral.  I doubt he'll be on our next cruise in July, but it would be great if he were. When we came back to the cabin we found this: Fun to see the decora...

 This is another tendering port (at anchor) and our tour was another 90-minute bus ride to see a waterfall and a stop at a local market on the way home.  The weather is again gray and overcast so we decided to cancel and spend a quiet day on the ship.  The tender pier isn't near the town center so even an exploring trip didn't sound appealing. This is a much bigger town than yesterday with a population of around 280,000.  They even have a McDonalds which you can see if you look VERY close at the second picture. Around noon look who showed up - our sister ship, the Splendor.  She just left Santiago yesterday on her way to Buenos Aires. Many of the crew were excited to see her and hoped to be able to tender to the pier to meet with friends working on the Splendor. We spent a quiet afternoon.  I spent the last few onboard credits at the spa getting a body brush for brushing away dead skin and "stimulating circulation".  Sure, but it feels good which is wh...

 We had a very early tour this morning (7 am!) so we were up at 6 am and I ran upstairs for some breakfast before going.  However, since it was a tender port, the report time didn't align with the tour start time, which was closer to 8 am.  There isn't a lot going on here, so the tour was a long bus ride to the National Park where we had about 45 minutes to wander around.  It's a pretty park and well-maintained. Fishing is a major source of income (including farming of salmon) and here are some fishing boats in the early morning as we arrived.  They were gone when we returned in the early afternoon. After the park, we returned to the ship via a slightly larger city, Aysun. This is called English Muffin rock.  Not sure why, except it is standing on its own in a field and the trees on top do sort of make it look like a muffin.  Geologists say it is not of the type of granite in the area and the theory is that the glacier caught it up and brought it many ...

 This morning Captain Ahbi took us up close to another glacier - Amelie, I believe it was called.  Again, the weather wasn't perfect, but it was better than yesterday. The colors are just amazing. And with that, we ended our time in the Chilean Fjords and are now heading north along the coast of Chile.   We had 3 lectures today.  The first was about living and working in Antarctica as a geologist which was fun.  He had lots of photos going back to when he first went there as a graduate student in 1974.  The second was Part 2 of the Captain Fitzroy, Charles Darwin saga given by one of the naturalists.  It was OK, but not as much fun as when Terry Bishop gives a history lecture.  Then Terry wrapped it all off with Part 3.  It's a very interesting story and he recommended a book by Harry Thompson which I may have to get. We had a decent 13/15 for one point at Trivia.  They had a production show at 6 pm (Blazing Boots) so we thought we'...

 Terry Bishop gave Part 1 of a 3-part series on Captain Fitzroy, Charles Darwin, and the HMS Beagle.  I have the picture of the replica in yesterday's entry.  That ship carried 69 people when it left England on its journey around the world.  Darwin slept on a hammock slung above the chart table in the chart room which he shared with 5 others.  That was right next to the privy I have the photo of.   There were two more lectures today, one on dolphins in the area that we might see, although I haven't seen anything since we left the Beagle Channel.  The other was about how the Antarctic continent is "managed" by the treaties.   We got up close and personal with the Amalie Glacier today.  The weather was very overcast so it wasn't the prettiest glacier we've seen. The closer we got to the glacier, the more green the water became, but this photo doesn't do it justice. We got 2 points for 13/15 in Trivia today.  Not bad.  There ...

 We were scheduled to dock at 11 am, but we were a bit late because the notorious winds of Punta Arenas were doing their best to prevent us.  We ended up needing a couple of tugs to get us in. Our tour was a bus trip to a couple of museums and a lookout stop.  The first stop was the maritime museum with replicas of famous ships all built to scale and with the same materials and fittings as the originals. The entrance to the museum This is the Victory, the only one of Magellan's ships that made it all the way around and back to England.  There was a crew of 23, I believe. Hard to imagine this dark and small hold on the ship in rough seas. The Beagle which Darwin sailed on. The privy The story of Shakelton and his ship, The Endurance Shackelton and 5 others set off across the Antarctic Ocean in this 23-foot-long lifeboat 800 miles to try to get help to save the 23 men he had to leave behind on Elephant Island.  They made it to South Georgia island in about a week ...

 We docked late last night and had an early tour this morning to see penguins!  We got into a nice catamaran that was enclosed but had small areas outside where we could get out for photo opportunities. Ushuaia is a nice city. Our first "stop" was at this lighthouse island where there were tons of cormorants and elephant seals.  They're a little hard to see, but those two brown spots towards the top of the island on the right are males who were having a loud "discussion." After a long (1.5 hours) ride, we finally came to the penguin rookery.  We weren't allowed to step onto the island, but we got very close. One of the young ones. So many penguins. They didn't seem bothered by us; I guess they're used to humans by now, but I'm still glad that people couldn't walk among them. After about 30 minutes there, we headed back for the long sail to Ushuaia. I don't know what this was out in the middle of the channel.  Some kind of marker obviously...