November 19, 2024 - Tuesday - Straights of Magellan

November 19, 2024 – Tuesday             Day 55 of this journey 

Scenic Sailing and the Straights of Magellan, Chile 

We awoke to stunning vistas this morning. The sun was up at 5:30 am. It is great to have more daylight. We are having to use the blackout curtains when we go to bed as sunset is about 9:30 pm.

The black out curtains are usually lowered by the cabin stewards when they perform the turndown service. You can raise them again, but about 10:00 pm, if they aren’t already lowered, a switch is flipped on the Bridge and all black out curtains will be lowered. This ship operates in something referred to as “Bird Safe Mode”. Exterior lights are lowered or extinguished, shades are lowered, even the Bridge is dark. The lights of ships at night attract migrating birds and causes them to fly into the windows. 

We continued sailing in the fjords, coming into the Straights of Magellan early morning and heading south. At 8:00 am we passed a shipwreck that the Captain had told us about last evening.  One rumor going around was that the captain had tried to scuttle it for the insurance money. He was just a little off on the location. Just a bit further and it would have sunk about 2,000 feet.

The Longitudinal World Cruisers were treated to a mixology class which was greatly enjoyed by those in attendance. Our teacher for this class gave a description of a drink, and a demonstration of the appropriate ingredients, then had a couple of volunteers from the audience come up and try to duplicate what he had done.

And in the afternoon, the ship’s Bridge was opened up to all guests for tours. We had time with the Staff Captain as well as a 2^nd and 3^rd Officer. I think we all learned lots and all the officers were very open to our questions.

This is our Captain. He is quite the character but very
attentive to the guests when he is out and about.
He also tells a "bad" joke every seaday with his noon briefing.

The amazing views continued on, then about 9:15 pm, we watched as the Viking Jupiter sailed by heading north. Both ships sounded horns saluting each other. We will be in Punta Arenas in the morning.