Timmer's 2024 Oosterdam Antarctica Cruise

 After a missed attempt to visit this port on the Grand South America cruise, we were successful in stopping here today.  It's a tender port and the ship used shoreside tenders.  There's a large group on board (200) and they got the first tenders and we were in no hurry as we were independently walking the town.  So we got up a little bit late and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with Ann & Paul from Canada who are doing something similar. We got in the 4-5 star tender line in the atrium and we were there for about 20 minutes before we were released to board our tender.  It's about a 15-20 minute tender ride into the marina dock which is on a peninsula.  We left the dock area and walked to the right from the terminal.  The walkway is paved in black and white tiles and is in excellent condition.  It traces a path along the rugged volcanic coastline.  While it was nearly 80ºf, the water was cold and we didn't go swimming.  But that didn't...

 We made this sea day into a relaxation day.  There was a nice display of towel animals in the Lido pool area.  The only events we attended were in the morning were the port talk on Buenos Aires (heavy duty warnings were given about crime) and the City on the Sea multimedia presentation.  At lunch we joined a brother sister couple from California  we had met earlier in the cruise and enjoyed an extended lunch and discussion. Our passports were returned to us today and I spent the remainder of the day reading South by Shackleton (his account of his journey and the subsequent rescue of the men stranded on Elephant Island is chilling) and keeping current on my YouTube threads that I follow..   After dinner our entertainment was Maria Campos who's been with HAL for 17 years and now has created a main stage show of Broadway songs.  She was very good and played to a full house.  Adam was sick with food poisoning so his billboard onboard sets were cancel...

 After a one day sail from Stanley, we arrived early at Puerto Madryn.  I checked my Marine Traffic app and saw that the Norwegian Star was already docked.  That means there will be over 5,000 tourists in town for the day.  As for us, we ate some breakfast, gathered our things, and went down to deck 1 where a significant line had formed to disembark the ship.  Just before 7:30am, the doors were opened and the PA announcement came that we were cleared and could disembark the ship.  We scanned off the ship to a waiting pier filled with HAL tour buses.  As for us, we were to meet our independent tour at the port gate which is at the beginning of a 3/4 mile long pier.  We walked the pier to the exit and easily found our tour company, Waira Tours, which I had booked online through Viator.  After a short wait we were escorted to our mini van where we waited for the rest of the tour participants to show up. We left the port at 8:35am and were on our...

 We're now on our next to last sea day before the end of this cruise.  It was a full day starting at 9am with a coffee chat with two members of the Antarctic Expedition.  The third member of the team, Dr. Ed, was ill.  It was interesting but not a lot of new information.  Graeme Ayers from the team presented a talk on the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition.  Interestingly, he was introduced by one of his adult daughters who traveling on the voyage with him. Captain Kevin Beirnaert then did an ASK THE CAPTAIN session. His personal bio was the most interesting part of the presentation before he took questions.  He's the youngest captain in the fleet at age 44, and he joked that there is a "learner" sign on the stern of the ship! Throughout the session he demonstrated how good of a commedian he was.  For all of these morning sessions,  the auditorium was completely full with the session being live streamed to the Rolling Stone Lounge. ...

 What a difference a month makes in the weather.  After missing Port Stanley on our previous cruise on the Zaandam due to the Port being closed because of high winds, we were hopeful that we could make this port stop to be able to go see the King penguins.  Overnight the seas calmed from the 15 foot seas that we experienced to very flat seas as we approached the Falkland Islands.  I woke up before 6am and noted the fairly calm seas and thought to myself that a stop here today might just happen.  We entered the bay for our anchorage and the tenders were deployed although not put into the water.  That's a great sign. I went up to the LIDO for a quick bowl of Congi for breakfast and returned to the cabin to do my final packing for the day which included layers of clothing and making sure I had the $400 in crisp $100 bills for the tour operator.  Tendering was supposed to start at 8:00am, but it started just before 7:30am and we were on the first tender ca...