Antarctic Sound , Iceberg Alley

Yesterday was St Valentines Day and Saga 'went to town on events'. We had a special souvenir menu card, very swish, all the dishes had' romantic' names, did not taste any different though.In the ballroom afterwards I was given a huge red rose without thorns, I have never seen such large roses.Today we should have gone ashore, our first step onto Antarctica but the wind was too strong for us to use the zodiacs so we did not go to Half Moon Island but the Captainsorted out another treat for us. He took us thro' the Antarctic Sound aka, Iceberg Alley and what a sight. There were huge Tabular icebergs which we would not otherwise have seen. Just like a massive flat table rearing up to our side. Lots of them, not many like the ones I saw near Greenland last July.It was very very cold on deck, The bar was serving alcoholic coffee, which I resisted for a while and then I thought of you Julie and I had a Grand Marnier coffee.The bar was out on deck so it was very handy for poor chilly souls like me.It was a strange night, quite foggy and the ship slowed down quite a lot. The second Staff Captain was called to the Bridge as another look out and apparently the Ice Pilot never leaves the Bridge whilst we are moving, the Captain was up there as well so there were plenty of them to look out for icebergs. Even so I went to bed in my 'green bits'.One never knows does one?Tonight we have had a naval officer at our table.A real one, she is a Lieutenant Commander and very interesting to talk to.She said that HMS Nottingham , yesterday came to pay us a courtesy call because Ruby is registered in the UK and it is the done thing for the Royal Navy. Isn't that nice! Not true what the Captain said re. wasting fuel, she is a Destroyer by the way. Tommorow we should land at Waterboat Point ABW.Nearly forgot, saw Deception Island just before dinner, was a volcano,saw Neptunes Window in the side of the rocks and Neptunes Funnel. A way into the volcano, did not go in ,no time .Bed now so bee byeeeeeeeeeeee. XXXXXXXX

Further South and moving towards Penguin land

Hello boys ! Chris 57deg 51'.259 S. 57deg 53'.704 W. Went to the Falklands yesterday, we were anchored out in the bay and so had the joy of going ashore by tender. 'Joy' is tongue in cheek by the way. I was most interested to go on the tour of Stanley--not we were told Port Stanley. Anybody know that they are twinned with Whitby? Fancy that! The monument to the forces who liberated them is really moving. I videoed it for you Steve.Next to it is Thatcher road, excellent! She is of course revered in the Falklands. I saw Mount Tumbledown and the other mountains and had a minutes silence and a few sniffles.Was shown the Govenors house where all our Princes have visited. Maggie has visited twice I believe. Our guide moved there 24yrs ago with family and loves it as do her family. It is a wee bitty cold for me though.I thought that the phrase- been there, seen that bought the T.shirt, was just a joke. Apparently not! Chris, forgot to tell you, approaching Montevideo at about 6am through my window I saw a yacht, spinaker billowing like a cumulous and going full pelt in the opposite direction. Was consumed with curiosity to know where. These yachting boys certainly get up early, thought of you Chris.In a similar vein, we had a visit after leaving the Falklands. Not an actual shakee handee visit but HMS NOTTINGHAM came to have a look at us, lovely.She nosed around us ,put on speed then 'said goodbye and we said goodbye to her' I love the roar of that, she then peeled of and went back to the Falklands. So said the Captain, he also said that she had decided not to waste any more tax payers money in fuel speeding up to cavort around us. Its my money isn't it? I liked it!Thank you for your message Chris, Ok Ok I read you . Hello Rob, if you are there.Chris, you did not ever ever tell me that you had been locked up in Buenos Aires, bad people. Tell you what, they have still not forgiven us for the Malvinas.It is the only place that I have not been able to text our position from and a phone call? forget it. It is another case of the French and Waterloo,---- Perfidious Albion and all that.We are now in Drakes Passage, pitch, roll, toss and Ruby's little skitter,the floor comes up to meet you as you are going down to meet it, fascinating , or something. I shall now crawl back to my cabin- only joking. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. XXXXXXX

Somewhere South

Somewhere dahn saaf. 46 deg 44'.509 S, 56 deg 48'.275 W. Why does a comp not have a sign for degrees? If it does where is it? Chris, I tried to get the reading under an overhang on deck but of course, as Mat says in Little Britain''computer says Noooooo''. It is flipping freezing outside, a fellow passenger who thought he was being helpful said 'you won't get a reading because you are underneath'. Tell me about it dear passenger. As you see, I suffered and all the errant satellites came to see me. It is quite amazing how they all pop up, being inquisitive I want to know where they all are??????To business,this morning we had a surprise drill= passengers and crew to go to our lifeboat stations, warm jackets, shoes etc.The Master gave a lecture with slides yesterday about the scenery in Antarctica and procedure for going ashore. He talked about going thro' Drakes passage and said that the weather could be frightful. Now why does that make me think of taking to my bed with Room Service for company? Because Captain Philip is well known to me for his use of adjectives and if he says 'frightful' it probably means that Ruby is going to try to stand me on my head again, forget about 'could be'. The speach was very good, made us laugh. Also Beau, our leader if the Antarctic team ,10 of them, talked about explorers. I must say that it was great to hear people who could pronounce Antarctic. Every body I have met calls it Antartic-- only one C.?????? Drives me 'nuts'.Our lifeboatshave to be tested 1 a month. Ours are done every week and after the Falklands, every day until after the Antarctic. Apparently the Explorer which sank around here recently gave a report by a seafaring man. Most passengers did not know where their emergency station was, they did not have correct clothing on and some went back to cabins for toilet. They complained about lack of leadership. The Captain said that on small ships ( only 100 ) men have 2 or 3 jobs. There will be none of that on Captain Philip's ship. We have many many staff and we all know where our muster stations are. Lunch now, I wonder if anybody has sent me a message. I shall stop blogging if you can't be bothered to talk to me.

Uruguay

Uruguay, Montevideo. We are nearly out of the River Plate and I went on a tour of the city this morning. I knew nothing at all about Uruguay, surprise, surprise so it was very interesting. It is a really neat city, I was amazed to find that there are beaches and the climate is more amenable to me. The sun was out but it was not really hot. Had it been as expected in Rio I would not have been able to gallop around as I did. Strangely enough there were not many people around but the guide told us that there are no indigenous people left. The diseases brought by the Spaniards, Portugese el al killed them off many many years ago.Charming!!! It is going to start getting colder now as we head for the Falklands. That will not go down too well, we are used to sitting on deck in skimpies. 49 people left the ship in B.A. and 170 joined. Fancy missing Rio. They must be only interested in the Antarctic as a lot are leaving on the west coast. Our Antarctic team have joined-- at B.A. actually and soon they will be giving lectures re. our landings etc.Am looking forward to that.I have won a photograph of Saga Ruby signed by the Master. It is quite swish really good quality. I did not do anything to win it really, just filled in a questionaire. I would like to say it was my superior intelect but I must not start telling lies. At sea tomorrow so hasta luego. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.P S had a lifeboat drill with crew and all. Captain had got lifeboats lowered so we could see into them, what a brill idea, none of us have seen inside before. I shall be OK in the unhappy event of needing to use them, I have the Cap'ns wife in mine. La La La.

Buenos Aires

I never knew that Buenos Aires was up a river, so to speak. I am totally amazed to find that I am so ignorant re. the geography of this planet. I knew that we were up the River Plate when I went into the bathroom and saw that the dirty river water had seeped into the toilet during my slumbers. The first time that happened I thought I had got the dreaded lurgy. Anyway, I digress. We berthed at lunchtime and I went on a city tour. Saw the monument to Eva Peron, it is a lovely figure of her running forwards which is how she attacked everything in her life according to our guide. She is still very well thought of here because she championed the poorer classes and especially women. We went to the Casa Rosada as mentioned in the song and saw the balcony from where Evita made speaches, looked for Antonio Julie but no luck. After that we went to the cemetery and saw the Duarte tomb, all the family are there but not Peron.He was deposed and went to Italy where Eva died. only about 32ish and was buried in Milan. Years later Peron became Pres ident again and brought Evita back to her homeland. Not to be put in a Peron tomb though. I did not know he had remarried so I guess the second Mrs Peron laid the law down re. that matter. We did see the rest of the town , it is very modern, lovely buildings. We went to the old town where there are some very old buildings and Tango 'haunts'.In the evening I went with Maureen and Rita to a dinner and tango evening-- along with about 130 other Saga guests. The dinner was far too much for me. Pasties as a starter then a huge steak with chips. It looked like a sirloin but had strips of fat in it and totally overfaced me.The Tango show afterwards was marvellous. I have never seen anything like it, eat your heart out 'Strictly Come Dancing'. It is a wonder that the dancers do not break their legs. Inever realised that Argentinian Tango could be like that but if one can't get an extraordinary tango in Argentina where can one.The two groups of musicians were wonderful also and there were three bandoneon players which is the instrument played here in tango. Similar to an acordeon but smaller with more keys. The pianist and the no1 Violinist were concert standard and all in all it was an extraordinary evening. Pity we had to leave or I would have gone again.Thanks for news Julie, lady of leisure yet? Pleased about Matthew, should do well. Chris I told you on the phone in Rio that GPS would not pick up enough satelites. Anyway Alan== Mr Fixit did. Picks up plenty now. satellite ,satelite? probably two ls.Love xxxxxxxxxx.