Sunday 1 February 2015

Day 24 - Saturday 31st January 2015 - At sea (Amalia Glacier)

Day 24 - Saturday 31st January 2015 - At sea (Amalia Glacier)

We got up this morning intending to walk the decks as normal, only to find that the top deck was cordoned off due to wind and the lower deck was half cordoned off due to some maintenance work. Plus it was freezing! So instead we went to the gym and I did 2 different circuits on the virtual reality bike - it was all going great until I got to a narrow pathway and I 'fell off' my bike about 5 times! I did stretch class, then we had breakfast.

I went to line dancing and JL went to see a speaker called Dr Yan Wong talk about 'the relationships between all known life forms' - an impressive job in 45 minutes! I then wrapped up warm and sat in the sunshine on the balcony to write the blog while I watched the ship's continued passage through the Magellan Straits - beautiful.

After lunch JL went to 2 more lectures - the royal chef talking about travelling to the Caribbean in the Royal Yacht Britannia, and then the policeman talking about more drug seizures. 

Meanwhile I put on every item of clothing I owned and went up on deck. We were due to be arriving at the Amalia Glacier in the mid afternoon but they couldn't specify the exact time as it depended on the ship's speed which depended on how much floating ice we encountered (eek! - Titanic memories flooded through my mind!). So I settled down with my book on a sunbed at the front, behind one of the wind shields. I was actually quite warm as long as the sun stayed shining and I stayed put, but as soon as I moved from there into the wind or the shade it was bitter! I had to cling onto the handrails for dear life as I walked down the stairs! 

We eventually had an announcement to say that our estimated time of arrival at the glacier was 4.00, so I went back to the cabin to warm up for a bit with a cup of tea before heading back on deck, this time with JL. We then spent a magical 90 minutes scenery watching, including the glacier which soon appeared. The captain stopped next to it for about an hour, and turned the ship round 360 degrees a couple of times so that everyone could get a good view (as the deck was pretty busy by this point!). We took some lovely photos and got to see the incredible glacier from different angles and in different amounts of sunlight. There were also a number of blocks of ice floating around, although none looked too threatening thankfully! The remaining scenery consisted of snow capped mountains and green hills with what looked like frozen waterfalls on them. It was truly breathtaking.

Finally it was time for the ship to head off (and for us to go and have dinner), but as we were leaving the captain said that we would stop in front of another smaller glacier in about an hour's time. I therefore spent most of dinner staring out of the window again, and just as my dessert arrived so did the glacier! I popped up to the promenade deck to take a couple of shivery photos, then came back to enjoy my cheesecake!

After dinner we went to see Ben Kearsley (classical guitarist) again with some more South American pieces, some Beatles tunes, and some by Scott Joplin. From here we went to see the Headliners Theatre group perform their next show - 'My Generation'. It was full of groovy costumes and lots of sixties music, with very energetic dancing, finishing with a singalong Beatles medley. Another fantastic day :-) 

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