Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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CaroleF wrote: 17 Mar 2018, 10:08
Some lovely pictures Bob. We were there last month on Aurora and the day or so before there was a lot of, will we be able to anchor or not. Well we did although it was an extremely rough tender ride to the quayside. We had two Captains on board for this leg of our journey. Captain Alan Hawkins took us from Southampton when the usual Captain, David Pembridge, joined us in, I think, Rio when Captain Hawkins stepped down to be be Deputy Captain. When we got to the shore in Port Stanley in the tender both Captains were there helping people off the boat - I certainly needed a hand to get off. We had a great tour on a small bus with a woman who had gone out to the Falklands as a teacher in the 1990s. She then married someone who had been born on the island and after some time back in the UK they moved permanently back to the island. She gave us an excellent commentary and it was a fascinating tour. I thought it was an incredibly interesting island, certainly took me back in time, particularly with the London bus parked in the car park which you can see in one of Bob's pictures. When I got the tender back to the ship, and as Bob says it took over 30 minutes to get back, the sea was extremely rough by that point and the tender was bouncing up and down. They had the canvas sides of the tender pulled down but the sea still managed to get through. There weren't many of us on the boat and luckily no-one was sitting near the exits, if they had been they would have been soaked. When we got back to Aurora one of the crew had to wipe all the seats down to get rid of the water. Everyone I spoke to was so pleased that we'd been able to anchor and visit The Falklands. Those who went on the nature type trips thoroughly enjoyed themselves and pictures of penguins were being passed around. It was a great day.

Carole
Hi Carole,
It was whilst I was buying the obligatory T-shirt in the souvenir shop just to the right of the Waterfront Hotel (Harbour View Gift Shop?) that one of the ladies who was serving mentioned that they were expecting “another cruise ship in tomorrow. Aurora, I think” and I must admit to a twinge of nostalgia.

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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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You're honoured Bob. You've even got a thumbs up from SWMBO!!!


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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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oldbluefox wrote: 17 Mar 2018, 11:22
You're honoured Bob. You've even got a thumbs up from SWMBO!!!
Honour indeed!

None higher, I expect. :angel:


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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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13.5 - Port Stanley and the Falkland Isles

After seeing Mrs QB onto the tender back to the ship I had about two hours to have a quick march around. There were a few things I wanted to see. The Governor's House, the Museum, the mizzen mast from SS Great Britain on Victory Green, a few more souvenirs and maybe the Post Office but before leaving for the ship I really wanted to have a quiet sup of a pint of local ale in the Globe Tavern near the pier. This would need careful timing.

The esplanade that always features in any shots of Stanley is actually called Ross Road and I start off marching along it to the west. I find a suitable T-shirt in the Harbour View Gift Shop and a few enamelled pins of various penguins and even one of an albatross. Then it's time to set off to try and find the Governor. I am having difficulty finding his house so halfway along I ask a local driver where it is and he directs me to a green-roofed building a few hundred yard further along. I soon find it and carry on a bit further to the next headland where there is some sort of monument. It's a mile from the pier but a pleasant walk and the wind has dropped and the sun is out. It turns out to be the 1914 Battle Memorial which commemorates the naval battle between the British and German forces on 8th December 1914. The British ships defeated the German squadron which was commanded by Admiral Graf Spee. The 8th December is still a public holiday in the Falklands.

The 1914 memorial.
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The view beyond the memorial further up the harbour. The wreck is the 'Jhelum' which was abandoned in 1870 after rounding Cape Horn.
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The memorial is just past the Governor's House and I stop outside on my return to town. I found out why I was getting the odd strange look when I had asked about it. Its name now is 'Government House'. Following the Argentine surrender in 1982 the power and influence of the Governor was much reduced in a new constitution in 1985 and even more so in 2009. I understand that these measures were part of an initiative from the United Nations for more self-determination, partly as a result of the war.




The ̶G̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶o̶r̶'̶s̶ Government House. Nice garden.
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The 1982 Memorial
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They are very fond of Margaret Thatcher. They have even named a road after her.
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13.6 - Port Stanley and the Falkland Isles

Going back to turn. The building on the right with the blue roof is the hospital
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The King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. It was rebuilt in 1987 after a fire destroyed the previous wooden version and was funded by local fish licences and income tax. They are closely affiliated with the NHS. Our guide is a type 1 diabetic and for the birth of each of her three children was flown back to the UK for their births because they don't have the proper facilities locally. There is a modern school to the right (sorry, no photo)

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The mizzen mast from SS Great Britain on Victory Green. The ship at anchor in Stanley Harbour is the 'Hanseatic'. !85 passengers and 125 crew.
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Getting nearer to town.
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I call into the Post Office. There must be some other sorts of souvenirs that I can find inside. This is all very familiar and I buy some first day covers of Falklands and South Georgia stamps with images of penguins and albatrosses.

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13.7 - Port Stanley and the Falkland Isles

The museum is very interesting but full of pesky tourists.

A model of the SS Discovery
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Another of my favourite birds. These are bigger than turkeys but probably too salty for Christmas dinner.
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I get back to the pier just after 5 o'clock and the last tender is at 6. Comfortably time enough for that pint of local brew that I had promised myself. I rush to the Globe Tavern and it takes time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There are two customers in front of me at the bar and service is taking an age. The second customer orders draft Heineken but I can see a pump next to it labelled 'Iron Lady'. This must be the golden nectar that I had promised myself. The Heinekens take an age to pour which is always the case when you're in a hurry. You can hear the ticking of every watch and clock in the place. Finally! The drinks are poured and it's time for the customer to pay. There's a further delay because he doesn't want any Falkalnd Island coins in his change. Oh purrlease. It's now nearly 17:40 but the beer is within tasting distance. "I'll have a pint of your finest Iron Lady please, barman"

"We've run out" he says. Imagine my disappointment at this devastating news.
"We've got Heineken" he says."
"I didn't come all this way braving the notorious treacherous seas of Cape Horn just to have a pint of some fizzy stuff I could get back home in Tescos" I say. And I trudge dejectedly away desperately looking for some cat to kick on the way out.

There must be another pub somewhere, surely, but the clock is ticking and after a desperate and frantic scout around I am forced to concede that my luck is out. I am later told that the Victory Bar still had some of this beer. Much too late.

Reluctantly it is time to join the queue for the tender.

The pub with no beer :(
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I think this seal was genuine but I was looking over my shoulder as the tender pulled away.
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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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13.8 - Port Stanley and the Falkland Isles

So that was the Falklands. The following is how I see them and is my opinion only.

Beautiful, haunting, unique and well worth a much longer visit. I am already investigating the possibility of a return some day. The flights from Brize Norton are prohibitively expensive but there is another option. Once a week on Saturdays there is a flight from Punta Arenas to Mount Pleasant for not much over £500 return. The only problem is that you have to get to Chile first. Oh well, that would probably involve a longer stay there before and after the flights. If we ever get enough time and money and Mrs QB is up for it then I would like to give it a go.

Our guide was very intelligent and informative and was very critical of the local political system and the Falkland Islands Company in particular. Of course I was aware that this was just one opinion but it seemed to me to be valid. I didn’t have discussions to the same depth with others but it was obvious to me that it was to some extent a feudal society and this cannot be healthy for their long term future. They need to take control of their own supplies of food and fuel and housing. Their problem in my opinion is that they don't have enough personnel with experience of the wider world and all its ways. Those that liver there and have been brought up there are familiar with the way things are at present and are none too keen on change.

They need better communications in every sense of the word. The phone and internet system is flaky. They need to make good friends with their neighbours. They need regular shipping service to the mainland, possibly Chile.This would give them the fresh fruit and vegetables that they really need. (There are a lot of Chilean nationals on the islands.)Perhaps they should take over the RMS St Helena. They need a deep water port. If they want more tourism it could be done but at a cost to their established way of life. A five star resort or two, golf courses (I hate golf. Luckily I'm not old enough to play it)

Beautiful Islands, virtually empty but not much good for anything other than sheep farming as things stand. They produce sought-after lamb but have only one abattoir which operates under the usual EU standards. Incidentally, although technically a part of the EU Brexit will give them a lot of problems and they didn't even get a vote on the matter.

They have a good school and a NHS hospital but poor communications with the outside world. Their future may not be under their control.

https://www.falklands.gov.fk/
Last edited by Quizzical Bob on 18 Mar 2018, 22:09, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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14 - At sea - Friday 26th January
n
Patters for today and tomorrow and port guide here:


Today is a sea day and time to recover from the excitement of the Falklands. That was an unforgettable experience and wonderful people. They are more British than most of us are.

I now have a bit of a crisis. All the photos so far have been taken on either my Galaxy S8 phone or a Panasonic DMZ-TZ80 compact camera which can give some good results but is prone to getting stuck when you take it to the beach and sand gets in. That wasn't the problem with it this time however. It has its own proprietary charging lead and I am absolutely certain that I took one with me in my little box of 'essential bits of memory sticks and charger leads' but it was nowhere to be found. And I was down to one bar on the camera's battery. I now had a choice. I could try to conserve the battery by only taking essential pictures and using the phone for everything else, but the phone is not great on anything zoomed. I could try to buy a lead on the boat or I could try to find a camera store ashore that might have one, but that would be unlikely and use up valuable exploration time. I even contemplated ordering one on the Brazilian version of Ebay and having it sent direct to our first hotel but when I logged in and set my country to 'Brazil' all the web pages turned into Brazilian which is not one of my languages.

I slept on the problem and then it occurred to me. Buy a new camera! The photographers on board only had a limited stock left but what they did have was a new, boxed Panasonic DC-FZ80 at what seemed to me to be a reasonable price.I thought it would be even more reasonable with my 10% discount but later found that it didn't apply to the photographers. This has very similar controls to the other one so it shouldn't be too difficult to pick up the new features and it has a good zoom lens.

Then, after I had bought the camera, I realised that it needed a memory card. The one in the other camera was suitable but even though the photographer assured me that I wouldn't lose all the photographs on it I didn't want to take that risk. I backed them up anyway and went downstairs and bought another memory card. After we got home I checked the prices and they were actually quite good. I think the lack of VAT helped.

So, boys and girls, the photos from now on are either from the phone or from my new toy :)

Tomorrow (Saturday) we call at Puerto Madryn. Now I must admit that I had never heard of this place when I booked the cruise and I still didn't know anything about it 3 weeks before it began and let's be honest, who does? What everybody does know, however, is that there is a part of Patagonia that was settled by the Welsh many years ago around the time that rugby was invented. Maybe that's what they were getting away from. Patagonia is a very big and vague place and basically covers the bottom half of Argentina and across into Chile. Legend has it that the name was coined by Magellan when he met one of the original locals and found that they were very big and tall, up to 12 feet according to some accounts, and called them 'Patagoni' which meant 'Bigfeet', apparently. The truth is most probably more prosaic but the name and legend have stuck.

In 1865 about one hundred and fifty Welsh settlers found a good landing place and called it 'Porth Madryn' after Castle Madryn and its estate near Pwllheli in North Wales. They must have been sorely disappointed because instead of rolling green valleys what they found was a very dry and flat landscape with very little water and not much vegetation.Nevertheless, they stayed and gradually began to make a success of the area by building irrigation ditches to take water from the Chubut river. They then moved nearer the river and founded the town of Trelew some forty miles to the south.

When around Christmas time I eventually started to examine the ports of call more closely I found that there are three main attractions to this place. There is the Welsh heritage, but we've been to Wales many times and it's only two hours away if we ever want to go there again. There are the penguins at the Punta Tomba nature reserve a two hour drive to the south, and there is the Península Valdés to the north east which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mrs QB had mentioned something about elephant seals on some travel programme and I found out that you can find them on this peninsula as well as lots of sea lions an yet more penguins but what really clinched it for me was when I found out that the north-east point of this place is the very spot where the Orca killer whales surge up the beach in order to try and catch a sea lion cub or two. This is where the famous footage was shot by Sir Davd Attenborough and his crew for the first Blue Planet. If there was any chance whatsoever of seeing this for real then we were going to take it.

Alarms set again for an early start and who knew what the morrow might bring.

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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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Bob, you do leave us wanting more. What will he see ?
Don't worry, be happy


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15 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

An early start for our all-day tour. I mentioned earlier that I had cancelled our ship's tour to Sparrow Cove in the Falklands and then spent the refund and a fair bit more on a tour to Punta Norte (North Point) on the Valdes Peninsula. Embarrassment forbids me from saying exactly how much it cost and if anybody ever finds out I shall be forced to eliminate the evidence and catch the next fast boat to deepest Patagonia. The tour consists of a two and a half hour drive to the north and east to the northern corner of the peninsula with visits to a sea lion colony, a penguin colony and a barbecue lunch in an estancia.

There are not many more than about 15 of us on the tour bus, I expect the cost put off a lot of people. First impressions of the town are favourable. A long beach of grey/brown sand stretches off on both sides and the town reminds me of a lot that we have seen in Spain and certainly no worse than any of those. Driving out of it towards the north we pass a small port and stockpiles of aluminium which is a major industry here. Aluminium smelting requies an electric arc furnace and uses a lot of electricity, typically from hydro-electric sources. The smelting factory here is the only one in Argentina.

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A major concern with any of these long trips is where the next comfort break is going to come from. This usually means no tea at breakfast and bottles of water in case of dehydration. Fortunately after just over the hour we call at the peninsula's visitors centre just inside the entrance to the national park. Of course our driver has done this trip many times before and is always looking for any wildlife. He spots a 'burrowing owl' sitting on its burrow next to the road. I expect that the owl keeps an eye out for the bus and pops out on cue when we drive past.

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Just inside the park we are lucky enough to spot a herd of guanacos. These are the Southern American version of the llama and are related to the camel.

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(these photos were taken through the window of the bus)

That was exciting! Now all we need are some rheas and an armadillo or two :)


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15.2 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

Our first stop will be at the sea lion colony at Punta Norte. It's a long way from the visitors' centre, nearly 100 km, and takes an hour and three quarters. Initially it is over a tarmac road but this soon turns to a dirt road but it's quite a good surface and apart from the dust not a lot different.

Outside the visitors' centre. There's 60 miles of this in all directions.
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The landscape consists mainly of sheep farms and is divided up into large estancias by the occasional wire fence and ditch. We pass several more herds of guanacos but we have a lot more to see and don't stop for them. As we get within a few kilometres of the car park at Punta Norte our driver suddenly slows down and stops. He has spotted an armadillo amongst the bushes. This is a cute little creature, about the size of a big dachshund with a long pointy tail and a snout to match. I try to snatch a photo but these were the best that I could get.

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Eventually we arrive at the car park at Punta Norte and are relieved to see the toilets. There's a walkway up to the crest of the ridge and the first thing that hits us is the smell and the noise. I'm almost certain it came from the sea lions.

This is the view towards the south. This is the beach where the famous David Attenborough footage of the orcas surging up the beach and snatching a sea lion pup was taken. It's our bad luck that the tide is out or we might have seen something extraordinary. A few weeks later and the pups start to work their way down to the sea where the orcas are waiting for them. They started hunting the pups in 1976. Two male orcas learn the technique and then taught some others. Nowadays about a dozen of the resident pod of about 25 practice the technique.

You can see two attack channels in this photo. The main attacks take place just around the corner on the next beach and you need a special permit to be able to visit and take photographs there. You can find out more on patagonia.com and pnor.org

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The mail sea lions are enormous, much larger than the females. Each male has a harem of several females that he jealously protects.

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15.3 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

Try these raw videos: https://youtu.be/q04rw158c0I

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The sun is quite fierce and it's a constant problem for the sea lions to keep cool. Some try covering themselves in sand and others wave their flippers.

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A couple of young elephant seals try to get to the water but give up. They are not as mobile as the sea lions because their hind flippers are not so well developed. Sea lions can walk on theirs which is why they used to be chosen for circus acts. These elephant seals will grow to be bigger than the male sea lions. If the orcas don't eat them first.

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15.4 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

Leaving the sealions to get on with whatever it is that sealions do we backtrack up the road and turn tight towards our next stop which is the Magellanic penguin colony. This is located in a farm on the coast, San Lorenzo Estancia. We have to drive past the farmhouse where later we shall be having lunch and then on to the penguin reserve on a gravel road but good quality. There are a couple of thousand of these penguins here and they are different form the Gentoos that we saw in the Falklands. These are very similar to the African (formerly known as Jackass) penguins such as can be found on Boulder Beach near Cape Town.

The shore here is one big gravel beach and bank and the penguins nest just back from the crest of the bank. It's very hot in the exposed sun and many of the birds seek shelter under the low scrub bushes or even by digging small burrows in the gravelly ground. Unfortunately some of the younger chicks have not made it and have succumbed to heat exhaustion. Possibly their parents have not returned from sea for some reason.

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15.5 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

Raw penguin videos here:
Penguins at San Lorenzo Estancia

This is a lovely spot. Miles from anywhere or anybody.

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We can't stay here all day. Lunch is calling. The drive back to the Estancia San Lorenzo is not very far and the penguin rangers join us on the trip. We catch sight of another armadillo scuttling through the low scrubs. These are cute little creatures, about the size of a fox but with a crusty grey jacket on their backs instead of fur.

Lunch is served in what was once a sheep-shearing shed. We have our own set of tables with six seats on each. I'm not a favour of this group method of eating. Everybody is terribly polite and only taking the minimum but secretly wanting more. The starter is a couple of large plates of mixed salami and olives and cheese. Very nice and plenty of it. There are a couple of bottles of Argentinian Malbec and I am pleasantly surprised.

The main meat course can only be described as 'interesting'. They called it lamb but it was very chewy and the ribs were at least eight inches long. The lady next to me said, "When have you ever seen lamb ribs that big?" We decided that it was really mutton.

We had just begun the drive back to the ship when suddenly on the right we saw a movement in the scrubs. It was a solitary rhea but it didn't hang around long enough to see it properly. Fortunately a few minutes later we saw a whole herd of them. Or should that be a flock?

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15.6 - Puerto Madryn - Saturday 27th January - arr 07:00 - all aboard 16:30

The return journey didn't seem as long as the one on the way out. It never does.

We get back to the town just after 16:00 and there are more people about. It is Saturday after all. There are people in the sea but I am led to believe that it's extremely cold. There is a cold Falkland current that runs north along the coast from Antarctica whereas we have the warm Gulf Stream over here. I met a very nice young Argentinian couple at lunch one day who lived some way inland from Buenos Aires. I asked them where they went for there holidays and they said that they sometimes go to the seaside in Argentina but that was too cold so for their main holiday they drive to the coast of Brazil. That's over twenty hours of driving either through or around Uruguay.

Puerto Madryn looked a very pleasant town and I was disappointed not to be able to spend more time there but for some reason we all had to be back on board by 16:30. It had been a fabulous day. Very expensive but Mrs QB was totally delighted and still talks about it. If she's happy then I'm happy.

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Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

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I'm just loving your photos of the animals. My favourite excursions when I'm on a cruise are the one's to see the wildlife. Were the birds in the Falkland museum albatross? I saw some in Dunedin, New Zealand and they were huge.


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emjay45 wrote: 23 Mar 2018, 12:07
I'm just loving your photos of the animals. My favourite excursions when I'm on a cruise are the one's to see the wildlife. Were the birds in the Falkland museum albatross? I saw some in Dunedin, New Zealand and they were huge.
Thanks Emjay, yes the stuffed one in Stanley was a Black-browed albatross, the downturned wingtips are characteristic of all these birds. The ones at Taiaroa Head near Dunedin are Royal Northern Albatrosses. We too were lucky to see them six years ago when we visited my accountant who lives near there at St Leonards (long story).

Before this cruise the only one that I had seen actually flying at sea was a solitary bird when we went on a whale-watching trip at Kaikoura. On this cruise we had seen dozens and were able to observe them more closely. That's one of the things that you can at sea when you're cruising.

Mrs QB loves seeing wildlife too. I'm interested too but I also like to see the local geology and tree life.

Next stop Montevideo :)

Here's another shot of the exhibit in Stanley for you:
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Last edited by Quizzical Bob on 23 Mar 2018, 14:19, edited 1 time in total.

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Thanks Qb my son and I did a boat trip out to the lighthouse in Dunedin where the albatross nest and I did my best to take some photos. They were flying in to feed the young and landing right next to the boat we were in.
I look forward to your review of Montevideo I have fond memories of our trip to a vineyard there, where I ended up having a little dance with a young man who had entertained us along with his lovely young partner doing the Argentine Tango. ;)

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Fabulous pictures and descriptions. Enjoy Montevideo, we thought it a real jewel.
Gill

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I've just caught up on all your reports and fantastic photos. Going to the Falklands is one of my life dreams, and you described it all so well, makes me want to visit even more now.
Gill


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16 - at sea - Sunday 27th January

Patters & port guide here:

Our last sea day before the end of the cruise which is now only a few days away. It's a chance to make the most of everything that the ship has to offer and to visit those places that you didn't even know existed. This has been a strange ship. Thinking about it afterwards I suppose that you could say that it has no soul. Physically it's the same as or very similar to the other ships in her class including Azura, Ventura,and even the Crown princess that were were on last September bu there is something lacking about the onboard atmosphere. Maybe it's the large number of different nationalities but we've had that on other Princess cruises. Maybe it's all the different nationalities in the crew. Maybe it's just got too many people on it. It doesn't spoil the cruise for us because we're here for the places that we visit and to look at the sea and not the ship.

The food in the MDR has been good on the whole with very large portions but the queues for anytime dining are unnecessary and the Horizon buffet has been overcrowded most of the time. On one day when everybody returned from tours ashore at 2:15 they decided to close the serving lines and switch to late afternoon snacks. There was a lot that they could have done better and I left a complaint with the Food and beverage manager but when he eventually phoned the cabin I wasn't there and he seemed to think that so long as he had spoken to Mrs QB he had done his job. Not in my book he hadn't.

We tried the Salty Dog Gastropub one evening and it was as you might expect. The food was a selection of little plates and we had a mixed starter too. The plates individually were very tasty but after three of them you felt rather full. The tables were those high things with stools that come up to your chin and that you needed crampons to climb on to. Why do the youngsters think that these things are trendy? As the evening wore on the room began to fill up with people who had come to see the singer and her accompanist. They were quite good, not too loud but not too loud that you couldn't talk to each other. Some people might not like that.

Arrangements for disembarkation are now becoming more pressing. We are due to stay in Buenos Aires overnight on the Tuesday and leave ship on the Wednesday morning. Those embarking on Wednesday also stay overnight and sail on Thursday. After a phone call to Princess UK last June I had booked our flight to Iguazu leaving at 12:00 which I thought would give us enough time to disembark and get to the airport comfortably but on the 1st January Aerolineas Argentinas changed all the schedules and our flight was brought forward to 11:10 in the morning. This meant that we would get to Iguazu earlier but also that the morning was going to be a bit of a rush. Fortunately the domestic flights from Buenos Aires use Aeroparque Jorge Newbery which is just a few kilometres along the river plate and only 20 minutes way by taxi and not Ezeiza International which is about an hour away.

After a brief discussion we decided that we would try the self-help disembarkation that day. We have never done this before but at least it avoids the scrum for your luggage in the baggage hall and you can leave your packing to the last minute.

We have no tour booked in Montevideo so no need for early morning alarms. The evening on the balcony was a spectacular sunset and it was an opportunity to try to use up the last of the gin and tonics in the fridge.

One of the cleanest and clearest sunsets that I have ever seen. Green Flash and everything.
Image


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Quizzical Bob
Senior First Officer
Senior First Officer
Posts: 3951
Joined: January 2013

Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

#97

Post by Quizzical Bob »

emjay45 wrote: 24 Mar 2018, 21:11
Thanks Qb my son and I did a boat trip out to the lighthouse in Dunedin where the albatross nest and I did my best to take some photos. They were flying in to feed the young and landing right next to the boat we were in.
I look forward to your review of Montevideo I have fond memories of our trip to a vineyard there, where I ended up having a little dance with a young man who had entertained us along with his lovely young partner doing the Argentine Tango. ;)
Hi Emjay,

Just for you here's a picture I took of an albatross and chick at the Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Head (the Royal is the name of the species and does not denote regal patronage). This is on the headland looking down on where you would have been in your boat.

Nothing to do wit this cruise but always worth seeing in my view.

Image

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emjay45
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Location: Ellan Vannin

Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

#98

Post by emjay45 »

Hi QB unfortunately (and it's probably me) but I couldn't see the photo. I clicked on the image but didn't know how to open it. :?


Topic author
Quizzical Bob
Senior First Officer
Senior First Officer
Posts: 3951
Joined: January 2013

Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

#99

Post by Quizzical Bob »

emjay45 wrote: 26 Mar 2018, 22:20
Hi QB unfortunately (and it's probably me) but I couldn't see the photo. I clicked on the image but didn't know how to open it. :?
Are you using an iPad? I have trouble on mine when there are too many photos on a web page. The iPad doesn’t have enough RAM for the Safari browser to be able to open all the images. If you use a PC browser they should load ok. I’ll see if I can post some links instead of embedding the images.


Topic author
Quizzical Bob
Senior First Officer
Senior First Officer
Posts: 3951
Joined: January 2013

Re: Quizzical Bob goes Round the Horn

#100

Post by Quizzical Bob »

Good morning Emjay,

I am now at my office desk and the images show on my desltop browser (Chrome)

Here is a link to the photo:

Royal Northern Albatros & chick in New Zealand

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