February 13, 2012

Today, we are at sea going south along the Chilean coast.  We had breakfast in the dining room and sat at a table of ten with a couple from Australia, two couples spoke French, a man from Atlanta, Georgia and a man from Manchester, England. After breakfast we went for a two mile walk around deck 10’s walking/jogging track. The waves were 3 to 4 meters and it was windy which gave our walk around the deck a different feel at each turn.  Then I spent 25 minutes in the well equipped gym. There were three lectures today.  We attended one given by a retired NASA executive on the space exploration and one about the animals of Patagonia that we are likely to see.  The third lecture was on the geography of the southern hemisphere especially southern Chile and Argentina and Antarctica. You could really feel the rocking of the ship in the dining room at lunch.  We sat with two American couples, from Florida and Texas. During the afternoon, we enjoyed a wine tasting of 12 red, white or rose wines and met more passengers including a couple from Belgium.  At the end of the wine tasting hour, the boat was rocking even more and it was challenging to walk to the theatre for the third lecture.  Dinner was formal and some tables had fewer guests due to motion sickness or not wanting to dress formally.  We managed 30 minutes of dancing before dinner and 40 minutes after dinner. Then we went to the Broadway melodies song and dance show, before returning to the dance floor for another 30 minutes. Tuesday we will be taking an excursion to the Chilean Lake District out of Puerto Montt.