Ushuaia
We walked up to the main street and called into the Hard Rock Cafe there. The franchise owners clearly expected large groups of tourists as the place was bigger than lots of the HR cafes I’ve seen around the world. It suffered from the same faults as the one in Buenos Aires namely no prices on the T-shirts, after queries they were way too expensive and were of poor quality. For the second time in two days I left a HR with no purchases.
Streetart in Ushuaia
We walked away from the naval base and at the end of the shops turned back and crossed over to the other side of the street.
Lunch at Taberna Viejo Lobo
Walking back up the main street we came to the pub. It was on the top floor over a large gift shop and a museum about the the prison.
Along with our lunch of burgers we sampled the only beer to be brewed in Patagonia – Cape Horn beer.
Sat at a window we overlooked the harbour and could get our first really good look of MS Fram. The lunch was excellent and made up for the missed meals earlier in the day at the hotel or even on the plane.
We’d forgotten that some of the shops closed at 13:00 and this meant the souvenir shop below was now closed. As we walked back towards HR we called and had ice-cream at Dolcissimo. The ice-cream was loaded and we were afraid of it falling off the cones so we sat on a bench to eat them in the shop.
We walked along the promenade to take pictures of the sea birds and the views as well as the ships moored there.
The Quest expedition ship, Ocean Explorer, was also going to Antarctica. This was the ship that the guy we’d chatted to in Madrid airport was catching to go to Port Lockroy in.
Port of Ushuaia
Entering the port gates was yet another reminder of the feelings about the Falklands War.
Across the jetty were two Japanese ships loading provisions.
On-board MS Fram
Our coach was the first to arrive at MS Fram. We registered and we were soon in our cabin after handing in our passports. As always on a ship we had a credit card scanned for the on-board account.
The photo printed on our ship cards were not the best images!
Our first task was to head off and meet the ship’s doctor and hand in our medical forms and answer some questions about our health and medications. Then it was time to head up to the Observation Lounge for some tea and cakes.
As promised in the emailed voyage documentation the wine prices were reasonable. We were offered drinks packages that combined red and white wines for a 25% discount. Unfortunately, whoever sourced the reds missed that some of us do not like dry reds but prefer ones that have a fuller flavour. The packages had to be taken as a whole with no cherry picking, so it looks like this voyage will be a wine free one.
At 17:30 we had our mandatory safety briefing. Two crew members demonstrated putting on the survival suits and the life jackets with a commentary from the expedition team!
After the ship’s emergency signal sounded, at the end of the demonstrations, we all assembled on Deck 5 for the passenger group picture.
Our first dinner aboard was a buffet and afterwards we were back on Deck 7 for the new Captain’s Cocktail party. After the glasses of fizz we had speeches. One from the Captain, then the hotel manager and then the expedition team. They introduced themselves one by one. The expedition team would be the ship’s crew we would meet with every day on landings.
Leaving Ushuaia
The evening’s presentations finished with the warning that MS Fram would have a following wind with accompanying swells as we entered Drake Passage. This was our last view of Ushuaia.
As MS Fram sailed through the Strait of Magellan Passage we passed Punta Arenas. This is the southernmost town in Chile.
Our first day on Drakes Passage.