Buenos Aires ~ Tierra del Fuego ~ Rio ~ Fernando de Naronha ~ Cape Verde Islands ~ Madeira ~ Prague ~ Ushuaia ~ Antarctica ~ London ~ Northwest Passage
I’m sitting alone on the observation deck, above the bridge on a ship as it sails north along the Brazilian coast, making for Rio de Janeiro. The sun is beginning to dance near the horizon. The sea is calm. The air temperature is perfect. The sky is blue; the water is bluer. The ship, cutting through that water makes a sound very much like surf breaking on the shore. One of life’s sweet moments.
Feels like we’re entering the tropics. Days much warmer. Sun stronger. Sea calmer. A great day for sitting on deck. A little reading. A little dozing. Really feeling the rhythm of an ocean voyage.
But not for long. Rio tomorrow!
We’ve gone two days now without snagging any new flotsam.
The seas have been calm with the weather varying from eerie fog and mono-chromatic horizon-less seas, to beautiful sunny skies with puffy clouds and just a hint of storminess in the distance. It seems like we can begin to think that there just might be a future to this trip after all, albeit an altered one.
The original itinerary had us stopping in Rio, then Fernando de Naronha, Cape Verde, Madeira, England and finally Bremerhaven, Germany. Knowing that we were 4 days behind and that Rio was needed for refueling, we all knew that something had to give. After days of handwringing and apparently some argument, Lindblad has presented us with two alternatives.
After Rio, the ship will still make all the planned stops up until Madeira. We will arrive in Madeira on April 16th, only 2 days before we were supposed to be in Germany. From there the ship will proceed directly to Bremerhaven and arrive on the 21st. Those who wish can stay on board, which means arriving 3 days late.
As an alternative, the ship has offered to drop passengers in Madeira. They will put us up in a hotel in Madeira, and the following afternoon they have privately chartered a flight directly from Madeira to Germany. They’ll then book us into a hotel in Hamburg, so we can catch our previously scheduled travel connections the next day.
So, we still get to go to the more exotic locations as planned, we get nearly an additional 24 hours in Madeira and we still make our connection to Prague on time. All we lose is the stop in Dartmouth, England, which would have been very nice. I was looking forward to crossing the English Channel and parts of the North Sea again. But we’ll gladly trade that for not missing these little islands in the middle of nowhere.
Some further information on the rope that we snagged mid-ocean.
It came from a long line fishing boat. These lines usually sit well below the surface. It must have broken free at some time. Because there was tiny marine life embedded in it, it had been adrift for a significant period of time. In these latitudes, long-line fishing takes place over the continental shelf. We were outside the continental shelf, again meaning it had drifted for a while.
We were able to see some video that the salvage divers took. It was a huge tangled mass. In fact, it was so heavily wrapped around everything, the propeller was almost completely hidden. And yes, the second propeller was also slightly involved.
Earlier I posted a picture of Michele standing next to the rope ball on the deck. As it turns out, that was only a small portion of the total mess. The rest is being carried below decks until we can dispose of it.
The crew has been busy salvaging what they can for future use on the ship. They have cut up some into small sections that the passengers can take home with them if they wish. We were right: free mementos. Think we’ll pass.
We expected this to be an older crowd, which it is. We also expected passengers who were very engaged with the world around them and who also had interesting tales to tell. Check. Finally, we also expected a few odd ducks. Check check.
There is, though, a larger number of people with some mobility issues than we would have thought. Also, the curmudgeon ratio is slightly higher than expected. But in thinking about these last two, I guess it’s really not too surprising. This is not your typical expedition voyage where you’re climbing into Zodiacs or kayaks on a daily basis. No wet landings. No 5 a.m. wake up calls. It’s more about the time at sea. So, those with mobility issues are going to be a bit more secure, except maybe when moving around on a rocking ship. It’s also an environment that’s more appealing to those who want to sit back and be catered to. The ones who tend to whine about every perceived slight (“Why did that table get their entrée first even though we sat down first?”). Fortunately, on a ship with only 100 passengers, this group was easy to identify early on, and thus could be avoided. Secondly, they tend to congregate in clusters and keep somewhat to themselves. Finally, there’s not really that many of them to begin with.
What we really hadn’t anticipated was the overwhelming volume of repeat Lindblad loyalists. Maybe not loyalists, more like groupies. Obsessed groupies. Old obsessed groupies.
Last night we sat at a table of 6 where no one had been on more than 2 prior sailings with Lindblad. We decided we were at the kids’ table. It seems that most people are in the double digits. One person we met is on her 24th voyage. I bet there’s someone here with even more than that.
They’re all great people. At least, except for the curmudgeons (see above). But there are times you’re with a group that knows the names of every kitchen helper or coal-shoveller from their last 10 voyages, or the topic of conversation is “do you remember on the trip to West Whozitstan when Patrick dressed up as St. Swizen?”, or some such nonsense. There’s a certain snobbery in this. That’s when you feel like you’re just visiting a club that you will never be a part of.
“Sometimes when I grow tired of the pecking order, like when standing in line in the dining room and hear, “how many Lindblad trips have you done? I’ve done 65.”, I remind myself Darwin did one voyage, but he thought about it.”
Port inky blue
Moon slightly squashed, almost full
Clouds, could be cumbilonobilominolumbus –
Unpronounceable, ask Debbie.
Starboard
White, almost, foggy horizon lightening
Purple and lilacs rising.
Ahead, lost Welsh tribe
With dinosaurs
David excited.
Ship, slow-going walrus
A little tied up right now
Freer, later.
Birds rarer
Formerly, busy
Petrels turning
Flocks of birders up early on bridge
Swinging long lenses, in the faces, of tired navigators
Eduardo sees Royal Albatross, Santiago does not
Argentinian one upmanship.
Horizon 360 degrees
Now cold blue, iced with pink
Still no sunrise.
Mind wanders to Mark’s pictures of women
Wearing dental floss
Distracting.
Tummy rumbling, unlike engine
Breakfast yearning
But still waiting for green flash
Jim says it’s true, perhaps he’s joking.
Still no sun
Maybe on strike
Somewhere near Italy
Or running away
From Donald Trump.
Ah look! Look and see
Starboard ho!
See her,
Sol, mother of life
Fiery provider of light
Rising disk, rising fast
A hill, a mound of burning white
A disk, higher and higher
Brighter, brighter
Mesmerizing, now, so quickly
Too bright to stare
Shining, blazing
Clear of horizon
Changing everything
Everything.
I had been doubting
Impatient, fearful
I should have had faith
The sun will always rise again
To fill the world with light
To fill the world with life
And color.
Yes, it is Easter Sunday
The sun will always rise again.
- Roddy Bray, ship cultural anthropologist and unofficial poet laureate
The divers were waiting at the pier for us as we entered Puerto Madryn on Monday. We gathered on the aft sundeck to watch them attempt to salvage our journey.
Speculation was rampant about what would become of us. Some thought it will take days to cut away the mess lying under the hull and fouling the propeller. Many thought if we get to Rio, the cruise company might just send us home from there. There has been plenty of talk about how we might be reimbursed, and even more talk about what planned stops might have to be eliminated. Most seem to be favoring eliminating Dartmouth or even Rio, on the basis that those locations are more accessible than some of the more remote places. It’s easier to get to England than it is to Fogo.
Amid all the hand wringing, the divers got to work to clear the propeller. The exploratory dive found that there were no metal cables. It was all rope and netting, so it was just a matter of cutting it all away. Although they appeared to be using steak knives, within a couple of hours they had the job done, while we were off exploring a bit of this section of Patagonia. They pulled up a tangled mass of rope, and for whatever reason, we’re now carrying a portion of it on board. Maybe one lucky passenger will get to take it home as a memento. Or maybe it will be cut up and everyone will get a rope bracelet.
There has been some talk that the divers found some of the netting wrapped around our one working propeller as well. If that’s to be believed, we’re might be pretty lucky we’re not adrift in the middle of nowhere right now.
We sailed at 7 pm on Monday, and are now on course for Rio. Before we arrived in Puerto Madryn, the staff was making no promises about what would happen after Rio, and probably wouldn’t be able to until they would see how long we were delayed in port. We now know that we will be in Rio on Sunday April 3rd (or is it Saturday the 2nd? There seems to be some confusion) instead of the 30th, and rather than spending about 14 hours in port we’ll be departing around 2 in the afternoon.
I’m sure the navigators are now busy plotting courses, calculating transit times and other such things. Every evening, there is a gathering in the lounge for a recap of the day’s events. I’m sure there will be some news and plenty of questions. In the meantime, I’m sure there will be even more speculation, half-truths and rumors in circulation.
Patagonia is huge. It’s hard to define exactly where the boundaries are. As its fame has grown, more and more areas have proclaimed themselves to be Patagonian. Broadly speaking, it’s most of the southern third of South America, starting a bit south of Buenos Aires. It may or may not include Chile, depending on whom you choose to listen to. When I think of Patagonia, I think of a rugged Andean landscape. But wait, there’s more. Nearer to Buenos Aires is the pampas, a green agricultural area. Farther south, along the East Coast and stretching inland are the steppes, Argentina’s version of the U.S. Southwest or the Australian Outback.
In 1865 a group of Welsh non-conformists, who didn’t like the English idea of having to give up their language and religion, decided it was time to go somewhere new. They finagled a grant of land in the steppes of Patagonia from the Argentine government, landed at what is now Puerto Madryn, and headed inland to establish a farming community. That’s what we went to visit. It was over an hour bus ride through what felt to us like a trek through the Mojave Desert. It must have felt like a big mistake to the Welsh.
But suddenly, you come upon a comparatively lush river valley that now has farms, trees and villages. Most of the town we visited is shaded with large trees. The area is dotted with Welsh chapels. The languages here are Welsh and Spanish, and most of the signs are at least bilingual, if not totally Welsh.
We were introduced to the area through some storytelling by an 80-something year old matriarch, and a performance by one of the local choirs. It makes you wonder if there are any Welsh people, regardless of where they live, that don’t have great singing voices. They must ostracize them at birth. Even our local tour guide, the historian on board (who is Welsh) and the matriarch broke into a hymn at one point and they were astounding.
But the main event was a stop at tearoom. The tea was excellent, (served with genuine knitted cozies covering the pots), but everything that went with it was even better. Cakes and crumbles, scones and cheese sandwiches, pies and other concoctions we never were able to identify didn’t stop coming. Returning to the ship later, all I could manage for dinner was soup and salad. So, for an unplanned stop in an unknown port, it turned into a very enjoyable day.
In the days of sailing ships, and maybe other times as well, if there was someone on the ship who brought bad luck, he was called a Jonah. We need to find out who the Jonah is on this ship, and set him or her adrift in a Zodiac.
For 48 hours we plodded along on one engine, because one of the diesels wouldn’t start back in Ushuaia. We were falling 8 hours behind schedule for every 24 we sailed. Finally near the end of Day 2, the crew got it to start! We noticeably picked up speed, started making up time and were beginning to feel that we would get to Rio within spitting distance of our original schedule.
Ha! That was only the prelude.
I once listened to a podcast that talked about the probability of born human. It claimed the odds of a being becoming a human, as opposed to being born as any other life form on the planet, was equivalent to the probability of swimming underwater in the vastness of the ocean, and just happening to surface in the middle of an inner tube that’s floating out there somewhere. In other words, very very remote odds.
It seems we have found that inner tube. I’ll explain: Early yesterday morning, several people noticed that we appeared to be trailing something behind the boat as we were steaming happily along. Behind us, in the wake about 100 or so feet, something would pop up to the surface, flail around and re-submerge. After much consideration, the crew decided it was most likely a line from a fishing trawler that we managed to snag during the night. Considering most of what’s around here are squid boats that don’t trawl, the chance of us coming across a trawler line was extremely unlikely.
But…..not to worry, we had a planned stop during the afternoon to collect a water sample. (This is a scientific research ship after all.) So, while we’re stopped, we would put out a Zodiac and see what could be done to release the line. Just that simple.
Freeing the lines
All went well. It turned out the line was snagged over the bulb at the bow. The Zodiac people lifted it off, and we were set to go.
But, as we re-engaged the propellers, the port engine stalled. (It was the starboard engine that gave us all the trouble for the first two days.) The Captain and engineers said “hmmmm”, and restarted the engine. No problem. They re-engaged the propellers. Big problem. It stalled again. They repeated the process. Same result. No point in trying that again.
As best as they can determine, there was more to the line than just what we saw trailing in the wake. They now believe there were more lines and/or net that we were also dragging along under the boat, and as we stopped, those pieces drifted into and wrapped around the propeller. Every time we re-started, we made it worse.
So now, we have a fouled propeller, and no way to free it. Given the vastness of this ocean and the likelihood of even running across a trawler line, and then hooking it in a particular way, and then managing to have it drift into our propeller just so, I’d say we’ve found that inner tube and are now drifting along inside it. It’s just good the starboard engine did get fixed a couple of days ago, or we would be literally drifting at this point.
Looking at the charts, we’re less than 1/3 of the way up the South American coast, and there are not a lot of options for dealing with this. We’ve changed our course from NNE to WNW and we’re heading for Puerto Madryn, Argentina. Since we’re back to limping along at 8 or 9 knots, it’s going to take until Monday afternoon to arrive. Lindblad is flying in professional divers and a safety inspector, and they’ll do their best to fix the problem as quickly as possible. Could be quick, might not be.
Regardless, we were scheduled to arrive in Rio on Tuesday….and Puerto Madryn is less than a third of the way from Ushuaia. Somewhere along the line, assuming we eventually get going again, something’s going to have to give. Don’t know what that will be or when we will know, but what we do know is that we can’t worry about it. The crew’s rolling with it, the passengers are easy-going and are here for an adventure anyway, so it’ll be what it’ll be. Plenty of food, plenty to drink, and good weather, so there’s no mutiny in sight for now.
Cerveza Beagle. Genuine Tierra del Fuego beer.
As we were flying from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, I lamented that we didn’t get more of a glimpse of Patagonia. Maybe I’m the Jonah, because now we’ll get that chance.
No, we did not sail to Las Vegas, nor is this a nuclear explosion on the horizon. This is a squid boat, just outside the Falkland Island territorial waters. They lure the squid to the surface using these immensely powerful lights and catch them on jig lines. These lights are so strong they can be seen on satellite images.
We are surrounded by sea birds. I guess they’re primarily gulls, terns, petrels and albatross. There’s a great variety. There are gulls that are predominantly grey, some very black smaller birds (storm petrels), and some speckled ones. We’ve spotted many albatrosses. No frigates yet and no boobies.
The most spectacular are the wandering albatross. They are a brilliant white with black wings, yellow beaks and perfectly aligned primary feathers. These guys obviously take pride in their appearance: Extremely clean looking, not the mangy sea birds that are often seen hanging around waterfronts. They’re also a far cry from the albatross chicks we saw in the Galapagos. They look more like the sanitized, Disney/Pixar version. If some of them start crying “mine, mine, mine” I will become very suspicious.
Out of all the birds we are seeing, these albatross are easily the best gliders, with their wing tips at the end of their 12 ft wingspans just inches from the wave crests. Then they will climb 20 or 30 feet above the surface, coast in a broad arc and descend along the water again for another graceful glide.
I remember some of our ocean crossings in the past. The gulls would follow the ship from seemingly beginning to end, riding the breeze just off the stern. That was a different era when no one gave much thought to dumping garbage or meal scraps off the back of the ship. The gulls would wait for that to happen and then pounce on the surface of the water to get what they could. I think these birds have a more natural diet. It’s more of a situation where we are plowing through their hunting grounds rather than them following us.
I blew off a lecture on sea birds this morning, but now I’m regretting it a bit.
The expedition leader and some of his staff paying close attention to a lecture.
This ship spent the Southern Hemisphere Summer running between Argentina and Antarctica. After that, and before starting an 8,000 journey to Northern Europe, it only makes sense to perform some routine maintenance on the engines. In Ushuaia, while the ship was being loaded with provisions, fuel, food and (mostly) old people, the engineers got to work. They did whatever they needed to do, lubricating this and replacing that, and then put the works back together again.
When the time came to start up, one of the two engines cooperated, one didn’t. Now, nearly 44 hours since we left port, one still hasn’t.
At this latitude, it’s very common to have strong winds and storms (the Roaring 40’s). As a result, ships sailing through here try to get out as quickly as possible. The good news is that the weather forecast is good. So, we’re moving along at our leisurely pace, but at least there are no mega-storms bearing down on us.
Here’s the math …. to reach Rio de Janeiro on schedule we need to average about 14 knots. With only one engine, we’re making about 9 knots. So, for every 24 hours we sail, we’re falling about 8 hours behind schedule. If that holds up, our 30 day trip might turn into 40!
Hopefully this doesn’t mean we’ll have to cut out some of our planned stops. They’re still working around the clock trying to get the other engine to start. But as I sit in the observation area watching the sea go by, I can tell you it’s not going by very fast.
The brought on a couple of kegs of Guinness. They were going to run out, so we needed to help them along.
The first couple of days on board have been frenetic for me. I can’t decide what I want to do first, so I’m trying to do a bit of everything. I want to visit the bridge. I want to sit in the chart room. I want to be in the observation lounge at the top of the ship. I want to use the gym. I want to spend time out on deck. I want to read more about the voyage of the Beagle, which we are following (in reverse order) for a while. I want to spend time reflecting (on what I’m not sure). I want to take great pictures. I want to capture some of it on the GoPro. I want to attend lectures. I want to make the most of everyday at sea. Yet, I also want to relax and let each day unfold.
There’s plenty of time. I’ll get the hang of managing it all.
No, this isn't a martini, it's a peach melba. I thought I was going to avoid desserts on this trip.