Shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

15th February 2012

The rust was hiding her hidden beauty

I awoke to a feeling of great excitement as today we embark on our voyage to the frozen continent. We started the day with a hearty breakfast of the usual Media lunes and bread, it was whilst cleaning up the we chatted to Steve (he's a guide on another ship) and Sarah asked him whether he knew anything about our boat? I was wishing she hadn't asked and was hoping the response was going to be one of great enthusiasm. No, all he had to say was "the outside looks a bit rusty".
Bags packed and a few hours to burn, we decided to have another wonder around town and pop in to pick up some trousers that we were borrowing from the company we had booked with, here we found out that we needed to head down to the ship for 4pm. We decided to walk by the port to see if we could see our ship and there she was, smaller than I thought and yes a little rusty. We decided to not worry about it as there was nothing to be done and just enjoy what ever we found.
We occupied ourselves till 3 and then started to wonder over. One thing which we hadn't counted on was how hard it was carrying our panniers would be, their so cumbersome off the bikes. So, we shared the load all the way to the port. On arrival we had to pass though a security check which was a little bit of a joke as the guy who should of been watching the screen of the x-ray machine was busy texting someone. On the other side of the machine where we went to retrieve our bags Sarah noticed some more panniers and it was here we met our first fellow guests Jean-Charles and Audrey. It was nice to meet someone so soon and fellow cyclists.

Small but very cosy

 The outside of our little ship may have been a little tired, but the inside was fare from that and as soon as we got in we knew that our next 11 days where going to be that of luxury. They asked us to wait in the dinning room which was surrounded by windows so no worries about missing anything. Here we were introduced to the crew and captain, who gave a very moving speck on how the Antarctic would touch our soles (he was right). We then checked in to our rooms, ours room was in the lower decks were we had twin beds and a nice bathroom and our very own porthole. Our first meal was 4 courses and wine free flowing and conversation to it seems as though we have a very nice group on board and only about 50 of us.

Our Captain Ernesto Barría

The Cruise had started and what a start!