In Buenos Aires - Feb 18, 2022

The last time that I posted it was to describe a complicated three part trip that we were planning to take beginning this month. At that time Omicron was just beginning to make its presence felt but not so severely that I imagined it would put the trip in jeopardy . Since then Omicron gathered strength and forced the cancellation of my drive up the Carrtera Austral from the bottom of Chile up to Santiago and then the Peruvian adventure with V.

The initial part of the journey, an 18 day Antarctican sailing trip out of Ushuaia , is still a go however and right on the deadline for confirming the trip I decided to take the chance and now I’m here in Buenos Aires after an overnight flight. I’m in my hotel awaiting my next flight to the boat, a flight which requires a 4am wakeup call in order to make the plane. Small price to pay I guess.

Needless to say I’m very excited, have been wanting to find a way to do this for a very long time. The trip will be on board the Ponant line’s ship Le Boreal, a relatively small boat with about 200 hundred passengers in which V and I previously sailed along with very good friends E and C about 6 years ago. At that time we sailed from Svalbard along the edge of the Arctic pack ice to Greenland which we spent some time exploring, and then on to Iceland. The boat was wonderful, very comfortable and small enough that it did not feel that it overpowered the places that we visited. Much of our time was spent on Zodiacs and wondering around the landscape, always with armed bear guards posted conspicuously to let us know if any polar bears were in the neighbourhood. Based on our experiences at that time I’m sure that this will be a happy combination of adventurous and comfortable, comfortable not being a description that I would necessarily apply to my last 2 or 3 sailing passages.

My real dream was always to sail to Antarctica but, not to spoil a pun, at my age that ship has most definitely sailed. And sadly, I will be flying solo, V in this instance having decided that discretion is the better part of valour. Not a happy sailor, V was not keen to temp the Drake Passage and the Southern Ocean and has left that for me to handle on my own.

Now I’m awaiting my the results of my second PCR test in the last 72 hours, a test whose results will determine whether or not I’m able to join the boat. Assuming that I’m cleared to go aboard. I’ll join Boreal tomorrow and we leave for the Drake Passage tomorrow evening.

I’ll post whenever I can find a signal to upload my posts. More to come!