Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Today is a day of scenic cruising through the Darwin Channel. We awoke at 5am to sit on the highest deck of the ship so we could see everything. It was so beautiful! We saw several large glaciers, some were named after different countries, Espana (Spainish), Romanche, Alemania, Francia (French) & Italia (Italian) glaciers. My very favorite was the Italia...it was by far the most spectacular. It took about 3-3/12 hours before we were exiting the channel. We froze but it was so worth it for the views.
Around Noon we docked at our next port Ushuaia Argentina. It is at the southernmost tip of South America and its divided. Partially belonging to Chile and Argentina. It is the largest port and airport for cruises & flights to the Antarctica. Scientists from all over the world fly to this port on their way to the Antarctica.
The port is surrounded by beautiful mountains in various shades of browns,greens,blues, purples and snow capped. We stopped to mail penguin postcards to everyone. Today we have our second Penguin tour! The operator loaded us on bus and we headed out of town on a 55 mile ride (one-way) to a place named Estancia Harberton farm, it was founded in 1886.
We sailed from Harberton Harbor to Martillo Island on a 15 minute semi-rigid covered boat. We when arrived to island we looked out to see thousands of penguins lining the coast, what a sight! We were all awe-struck. We were cautioned to walk very slowly & quietly and to not make any loud noises or quick movements because one you scare one penguin...they all run away scared.
We spent an hour walking along side the penguins, taking pictures, watched them swim, kiss and sleep. There were no chicks because they have all grown and are now in their molting stage. We saw penguins in various stages of molting. Some were done while a few had just started.
Today was an experience that I will never forget, well worth the 2 hours round trip by bus. It made this whole adventure of ours complete.
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