Thursday, 5th February, a very murky and rough sea day, 10 degrees

There was a thick sea mist and rolling waves this morning. The window to our cabin was wet with rain one minute and swell the next. At our daily Board Meeting we agreed that despite how good the ship’s stabilisers are, walking the promenade deck was probably not going to be on. (The powers that be were obviously also of this view as all the doors to the promenade deck had been barred and we were confined to barracks.)

It was Joe Wicks exercises to the fore and even they proved tricky, given the movement of the ship. Having had a pretty ragged attempt at Joe’s exercises we had breakfast and then I busied off to ukulele. The group are doing love songs at the moment ready for a concert for family and friends on Valentine’s Day. Luckily for my chums it will clash with Bridge and I cannot do both. As I cannot afford to miss a moment of Bridge i shall have to reluctantly miss out on the Valentine’s Day concert. Ahem.

Bridge was particularly mystifying today, I think all of our table were mystified, we all walked away, shrugging and shaking our heads!!

We were still not allowed out on deck as there was still quite a swell so we adjourned to the Crows Nest, me with my knitting and Keith with a good book. (A rather magnificent biography of Tom Stoppard. Ed) Given the fact that mo one is allowed outside seats were in short supply up there, but we eventually found space with Peter and Jennifer and elderly couple from Oldham. They have been cruising since 1995….. and were a bit dismissive of this particular route I thought, where we view it with wonder and delight. I got a few knitting rows in but chose not to sit with the Purls of Friendship group after finding them a bit frosty on the only time I joined them.

We met up with our Bridge chums for our lunchtime snack. The sea had calmed down and we are headed for our first Glacier this afternoon – the Amalia Glacier. The sky does seem to be growing a bit lighter so we were hoping to be able to see more.

I looked in on a talk by Adrian Haye, something of an adventurer who has skiied to both North and South Poles and wind surfed the length of Greenland. As you do! As he waved his frost bitten fingers (they were black) and apologised for wearing sandals with his suit – he apparently had an accident 9 months ago and still can’t put shoes on – I could not help but think ‘what gets these people up in the morning’? Do they think ‘I will start planning to walk to the North Pole today’? A special kind of mad adventurous spirit. (Is it so different from ours? Ed)

When I got back from pondering that vexed question, we decided that it was time to start walking the deck to get our exercise in for the day and be on hand to watch the appearance of the glacier. Having changed into my leggings for deck walking in chilly weather, I found that I had a twisted leg seam (it happens) so I dashed into a loo to sort it out – and missed the first sighting of a condor!! Life can change on the turn of a sixpence, can’t it? Now Keith has seen a condor and I haven’t, all because of a twisted seam.

Although the waves had calmed down, the greys of our surroundings hadn’t really changed. Large lumps of rock loomed out of the water as islands and on the mainland mountains went back and back. The Andes, that amazing range of mountains which forms almost the backbone of South America, runs through seven countries. From south to north Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia sand Venezuela. The string of mountains more or less run parallel with the Pacific coast.

It is difficult to identify the most southerly Andes and where the range runs into the sea but the sight was awesome as we wended our way to the glacier Amalia.

Eventually we turned towards it and could see the snowy tops of mountains coming into view…..

We then turned a bend and there it was, sadly the rain also came in again and our view was hampered by the weather.

…… and that was as good as it got. We both agreed it was a little disappointing and underwhelming and if I am honest, because of the weather conditions, it looked a little bit grubby to me.

However, a saving grace was that while waiting for Amalia to show her face we saw four dolphins along the side the ship.

I am afraid this was the best we could get in terms of photographic evidence but it was our first dolphin sighting.

Let us hope the tomorrow’s glacier is a little more visible and brightens itself up for viewing. Its name is Pio XI and is named after Pope Pious XI What tickles me is that it, like Amalia, is situated within the boundaries of Bernardo O’Higgins National Park. Can you believe that name?!?

Let us hope that tomorrow dawns bright and sunny because we are due to arrive at the Glacier at around 8.00 am.