When we woke up this morning it was decidedly cold! We wrapped up warm and went and did our mile around the decks anyway, and in fact when you were on the sunny side of the ship shielded from the wind it was very pleasant! I then went to stretch class while JL went to get a seat for his first speaker of the day, Ian Brown, who today was talking about money laundering following the Brinks Mat robbery. I went to line dancing then got the blog published quickly as we'd been warned that the internet signal can be intermittent in the Chilean fjords.
After lunch JL went to see another speaker, who talked about royal state banquets, and to play table tennis, while I spent most of my time on deck (wrapped up warm!) as by this point we had entered the Magellan straits. This waterway at the southern tip of mainland Chile was discovered in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan, who had left Portugal in search of a route to India (just a little out then!). It is thankfully much calmer than going round the most southern parts of South American land - Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. There was not much land to see at first, but lots of oil rigs - apparently this area is rich in both oil and natural gas. But the main reason I was up on deck (and later camped on my balcony) was what was swimming in the sea - first we saw some pods of tiny black and white porpoises jumping through the waters. And then I saw two little black heads poking up out of the water looking around - I zoomed in with my camera and sure enough... they were penguins!!! I spent the rest of the afternoon with my eyes glued to the water spotting lots more of both species. The photos were less successful however! It was wonderful!
We went to dinner and got a table by the window where I ignored JL and kept spotting more penguins swimming by - I have no idea what I ate during that meal!
We then went to see the classical guitarist who tonight played a range of Latin American pieces, some Beatles tunes and a lovely Japanese piece. JL then went to see the evening's show in the theatre - the ventriloquist who was on the other night doing his second show. I skipped this one and instead settled down in the Crows Nest with a chocolate and banana mocktail, my camera, and a window seat! Unfortunately I didn't see any more penguins, but I did see a beautiful rainbow when we has a little shower, and watched the sunset as we arrived at our destination for the following day - Punta Arenas. We were anchoring at sea overnight just outside the town, ready to go exploring bright and early tomorrow!
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