November 4, 2014 – Rounding The Horn Today at 8:20 a.m. we rounded "The Horn". Leaving Ushuaia we headed further south for the Strait of Magellan towards Cape Horn. The loudspeaker in our room came on at just at 7:00 warning guests NOT to be on any of the outside decks – according to the Captain, we were in 30' swells and were experiencing gale force winds in excess of 100 m.p.h. Our cabin is on the first floor outside which generally affords us a pr...

Punta Arenas – Tour Day – Otoway Penguin Colony I was a little slow off the mark today. We had a 7:00 a.m. call for our tour today, but I was dragging based on our little party last night. Vince, Karen, Deb and I took two of the cruise staff to dinner last night in one of the specialty restaurants. This was not meant to be a nice gesture, oh no. I'm learning from my now good friend Obie Won Kenobi how to work the deals here onboard the Zaandam. See, ...

Day 27 – Happy Halloween It's 4:16 a.m. on Halloween morning. Since leaving Vancouver, we have traveled over 6,000 nautical miles and it doesn’t feel like we’ve left the hotel yet. I’m awaken by the tossing and turning of the ship. First we go way up in the bow and then down, rolling from port to starboard in the waves. The old girl is making her way through the rough waves tonight and the creaking is louder than normal. The glass in our ...

Puerto Montt, Chile We avoided the rough seas last night - waves were to be as high as 5 meters or 16 feet, but we thankfully pulled into Relconvavi Sound early because of increased speed by the captain. We are on time as usual and get set for the tender into town. Today looks like yet another overcast and rainy day. We are apparently the first cruise ship of the season. Puerto Montt is a port city and commune in southern Chile, located at the northern end of t...

Sea Day – Enroute to Puerto Montt. Today is Day 25 – only eleven days left to go before we dock in Buenos Aires. Given the captain's weather warning last night of high swells – today has been pretty respectable so far. There’s blue skies and big fluffy clouds, but there are much more white caps on the water than on our whole trip combined. The captain has apparently sped up a little (21knots) to see if we can get into the protected waters...