Thursday, February 22, 2018- Cruise Day 30; Cape Horn Scenic Cruising

Thursday, February 22, 2018- Cruise Day 30; Cape Horn Scenic Cruising

We saw some very rugged islands off our balcony this morning as we are headed towards Cape Horn.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then attended the morning trivia.  We exchanged notes on our Stanley excursions and getting back to the ship stories.  It turns out two tenders developed motor problems, and that contributed to the very late departure from Stanley.  It’s a good thing we went back early, because many people ended up waiting up to 3 hours to get back on the ship, and at some point, Princess brought in empty tour buses for people to take shelter in because it was so cold on the dock, and the shelter was way over capacity.  As for the trivia, we ended up in a 5-way tie for first place with 18/20 points.  The tie breaker was to guess how much the world’s record for a stir fry weighed.  We guessed 3500#.  The answer was 4010#, but one team guessed 4000#, beating us.  

We hit the fitness center for some guilt reduction and then went to the Pub lunch, which they usually do once a cruise segment.  Janet had the Plowman’s lunch, which was an assortment of cheeses, luncheon meat, bread and pickles.  Ben had the fish and chips, but it looked like they battered two small french fry sized pieces of fish, so it wasn’t all that good.  We may skip the pub lunches in the future since the dining room and buffet lunches are usually pretty good.  

We then went to the Princess Theatre and watched the movie “The Dark Tower” with Matthew McConaughey as a creepy satan guy vs a gun slinger through interdimensional portals.  Yup, it as as dumb as it sounds.  It was based on a Stephen King novel, apparently.  

We didn’t do so well in the afternoon trivia, scoring 15/20.  The winners scored 18/20. One question was “What is the Roman God of the Moon?”  We answered Diana, who is the goddess of the moon and the hunt, but the answer they were looking for was Luna.  

We had an early dinner and then bundled up to go out on deck 15 to see our scenic cruising around Cape Horn.  It was ironic that all the public viewing decks below 15 were closed off due to high winds and spray, but it didn’t end up all that crowded on deck 15.  We ended up doing a counterclockwise circle around Cape Horn, which is actually a series of islands.  People with portside balconies had the most comfortable and convenient viewing. Unfortunately, our cabin was on the Starboard side, so we had to go to the top deck.  The wind was something fierce!  It as probably blowing across the decks at 50+mph, making it very hard to hold our iPhones to take pictures.  It felt like the wind was about to rip our phones out of our hands.  You also couldn’t hold a camera still because the wind was gusting so strongly.  According to our destination expert, who provided narration, these were very favorable weather and sea condtions. He assured us it gets A WHOLE LOT WORSE during their winter months, which would be the northern hemisphere’s summer months.  We could easily see the light house marking Cape Horn, and the large sculpture depicting a cut-out of an Albatross, which is a memorial to all those who have lost their lives off the Cape.  

We dashed back inside for an Effy drawing where you had to guess what gemstones were in 10 pieces of jewelry.  The person guessing the most correct would win a gift bag, and then a consolation drawing would be held for all the other entrants. Because most people were watching the Cape Horn cruising, there were less than a dozen people in the store, and you had to be present to win the drawing.  Janet managed to guess 3/10 gems right.  The winner had guessed 8/10 right and won the gift bag.  Then when the consolation prizes were drawn, because there were so few people in the room, they just kept drawing until someone in the room’s name was pulled, and Janet happened to be the last one pulled out of the bag. So Janet’s now a 2-time Effy winner.  Her prize was a silver panther keychain/purse fob and a blue crystal earring and pendant set.  We then ran back up to deck 15 and watched as we pulled full circle around the horn, seeing the other side of the lighthouse and Albatross monument as we sailed past from the south, headed back east.  We will then head north into Magellan’s channel, which will take us to Ushuaia overnight.  This maneuver will bring us from Chilean waters back to Argentinian territory so our manifest will show we are arriving from Chile, and not the Falkland Islands.  The Argentinians will refuse docking to vessels coming directly from the Falkland Islands because there is still plenty of bad blood between the UK and Argentina over the war over the Falklands during the 1980’s.  

There was a Geography trivia tonight, which we participated in. Bob was not available so Ted, one of the Canadian’s we met on the Iguazu trip, joined us.  We made a decent effort but scored 18/25, while the winners scored 23/25.  We called it a night after that.

Tomorrow we arrive at Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world tomorrow. We have an excursion to “Drive to the end of the world” that meets at 8:15AM.  Hopefully we won’t be driving over a cliff into the Beagle Channel at the end of that excursion.