Ushuaia and Departure for Antarctica

Today guests disembarked as did some crew. Paul and I went into town to look for snow googles. Sunglasses in Antarctica helped in a big way but I found that wind blowing the snow behind my sunglasses was uncomfortable. The snow crystals hurt my eyes, a bit like a sharp pinprick to the eyeball, so we thought it would be a good idea to protect our eyes a bit more on a bad, windy, snowy day. Everything is so expensive in Ushuaia so we had to watch the pennies. We found reasonably priced snow goggles after going into quite a few shops and wearing the soles of our shoes thin!

I also bought a base layer thermal set as my current set is falling apart from being washed so much. The prices were hefty, men and women's, but in the end I found a children's set which was half the price of that of a pair of adult's thermal leggings or top on its own! (E.g. about €58 euros for the children's set compared to over €100 for say just a pair of adult leggings or top base layer.) So we were pleased.

When we got back to the ship we looked at the label, which was a European based price label. We actually paid over 20 euros more than what was actually on the European label, vs the Argentinian price label (bearing in mind the official exchange rate when we calculated it). Never mind. We supported the economy....

New guests are on the ship and at around 4pm we all had to attend a mandatory lifeboat briefing and then a briefing about what to expect over the next few days. Guests will have to also watch a t.v. presentation about what to do in an emergency, and won't be able to access any t.v. programmes until they have done so.

The Pursuit has now set sail to Antarctica. Paul is already on the Bridge. His shift has changed to crewing circumstances for the time being. So his shift is 6pm until midnight and then around 12 noon until 4pm. At least he can get some kip in the later evenings rather than having to go through the night and then try to sleep during the day. We shall see how things go!Read more