We all thought it was going to be a "Yarn" as he was very entertaining and humourous. But no, it was a real story, He was captured by pirates off somalia,in this yacht, Le Ponant, in April 2008, with a crew of 30 luckily no passengers as they were repositioning the boat, held for about 4/5 days while negotiations went on between his company and the pirates with him in the middle, they were armed to the teeeth, fired shots into the ship several times, lots of photos, he was stalling to give the navy time to get close, very dramatic, Long story short, he got all his crcew off safely including himself, in exchange for 2 million us dollars, and they got the yacht back and the french captured 6 of them but only got back a tenth of the money. When he got back to France President Sarkovy awarded him the Legion d'Honouer. So not only was he handsome and soooo sexy voiced, but brave as well! Well we are back in Buenos aires now, and only got 2 more days left, This has truly been the best experience of my life as far as travel goes , so far! I will post the photos soon, but I didn't bring my cable and I have taken so many I need to prune them, but I promise I will post some and the rest you will have to wait until we meet and you can see them on my computer or the tv. Au revoir, and Bonjour.
vicki
Friday, March 1, 2013
Antarctica part 3
Carying on, THe penguins were very cute, we were advised to put aside the cameras and just watch, and carry the memories in your head. sound advice, as you can spend too long looking thru, the camera lens. The Captain had an open bridge policy, so we coild go up there at any time, and watch from there when there were icebergs, whales, penguins, seals, birds, more icebergs. really fabulous. I don't have the superlatives to describe all the experience, except to say it was the most wonderful trip. We land on mainland Antarctica, my 7 th continent, as well as various islands in the peninsula. We even found a shop! At Port Locroy, there is a british base mand during the summer, and they have some tourist stuff, postcards, maps, teatowels, etc, and a great museum of the early days. We all posted postcards, so some of you can expect them in a bout 3 months time! Some people had the chance to do a 3hour hike, across a peninsula, 27 elected to do it, there was no turning back as the ship moved on! some went for a polar plunge!! It was in an area where the sea was minutely warmed by volcanic heat, as a matter of fact, the pudles on shore were quite hot, but the sea quickly cooled it down, still some folk braved it while we all cheered!! I was sorry i didn't try it, but realistically the thought of stripping down in front of everyone was more than I could stomach!
So then suddenly it was almost over, we had a final gala dinner with the captain, oh how sexy was his voice, in his fractured english, when he gave us the Weather reports! all us old girls were swooning over him. Then he gave us a talk about piracy and Le Ponant, which is one of the ships from the line. It is one of those 4 masted sailing ships. We all thought it was going to be a "arn"
So then suddenly it was almost over, we had a final gala dinner with the captain, oh how sexy was his voice, in his fractured english, when he gave us the Weather reports! all us old girls were swooning over him. Then he gave us a talk about piracy and Le Ponant, which is one of the ships from the line. It is one of those 4 masted sailing ships. We all thought it was going to be a "arn"
Antarctica part 2
So where was I , yes 4 straight sunny days, as the Captain said we paid our dues to Antarctica in the Drakes Crossing, I will jump around as I will do this from my head rather than referring to my notes, We went out every day, twice, landing evry day and often twice, but sometimes a zodiac cruise, for example there is an area called Iceberg Alley, hundreds of icebergs, aground, huge, very spectacular, all that beautiful blue ice, arches, caves, flat ones low ones, high, one, and then I saw the first whale on our zodiac... talk about a thrill, we saw 12/13 Minke whales... Our zodiac driver, who was actually the expedition leader, Juan, id he had never seen more than 3/4 together at any one time. Special. we spent about 90 minutes out , which is plenty in those temperatures, I ran my battery flat in the camers, and we stopped in a seclu spot, turned off the motor and just listened to the sea and the ice it was awesome. Then we had champagne. They really knew how to celebrate the experience. Another time we stopped beside a huge ice floe and we were able to land on it and had photos takenetc. The expedition crew went out before us and marked out routes that werre safe for us to walk on, on the glaciers, and along the beaches so we didn't upset the penguins and seals. the penguins were in a moult stage, a lot of them, so they stay pretty quiet, so as not to use a lot of energy, as they can't go into the sea when they are in moult.The chicks were almost big enough to go i to the water,q and were just a little fluffy. Penguins are so funny to just watch for minutes at a time
Antarctica
Hi All,
I will write until the tablet gets tired and then start again!
WEll, I don't have the words to adequately describe this trip. It has been amazingî f rom start to finish. Of course the flight from Adelaide to Sydney was nothing, apart that it was a very hot day, and with parking up the motor hpme and getting to the airport, it was pretty uncomfortable. We spent the night at the Stamford Airport hotel, with a 4am call for the airport. No problems there we board a Lan Airways flight to Aukland, Santiago, and then Buenos Aires. The only food they fed us was bread and ham and cheese! We did get a very small (even by airline standards} meal of veal, but otherwise it was bread and cheese and ham, and bread and ham and cheese, all very stale. and not to my taste as bread stucks in my craw these days, oh well it saved me eating too much. They also weren't too keen to give us drinks either. Lan has gone to the bottom of my airline list.. We had a nice couple of days in Buenos Aires, a really good guide , who was easy to understand, took us on a city tour, including seing Evita's tomb, then we walked to a market and had a delicious and tasty and tender Argentine steak, melted in your mouth, good beef too. So after a walk around La Boca, an area known for where the Tango started, it is very colourful, with a lot of uildings made out of corrugated iron, but painted in all the colours of the rainbow. We were given lots of warnings of thieving and pick pockets etc, and not to wear gold jewellry on the streets, but nothing happened to us, at least. Then another early morning call 3.30am, and we were off to the airport for our flight to Ushuaia. VEry cold when we got there and rainy, they piled us into buses for a tour around the peninsula, including a great bbq lunch, lamb, and salads and wines etc. very tatsy, they bbq the whole side of lamb propped up around a huge fire, 6/8 sides at once, and they serve all the animal, not the heads, but you get the picture, some bits were more boney than others but really tasty . We finally got delivered to the ship about 5 pm.
Our cabin was a bit squeezy, with 3of us in it, but we quickly sorted ourselves out, unpacked and got organised. This is a very luxurious 5 star ship, but an Expedition ship, not a cruise, as they frequently told us. aSo lots of lectures etc, and no bingo! First evening the captain, Le Commandant, warned us of bad weather across Drake Pasage, so we were laying sailing until midnight in hopes of missing the worst!!! Ha! We all went to bed with great trepidation, but morning came and we could see, huge seas, and howling winds, oh mi god!! but, I was happy to be ok. sat and sewed my patchwork blocks, went to lunch, thought iI'll just take a Kwells to be on the safe si, and was very happy all crosing. Most I would say were not so lucky. Carol and I fared very well, but not so Poor Rob, He took to his bed and that was that. Apparently we had seas of 13 metre s, 160km hr winds, the wavees were washing the bridge 5 cks up!! #,and it was a force 9/10 gale. The worst the captain had had, all season! And on the third day it cleard and the sun shone, and we saw icebergs, and icebergs and we were nearly there. THE GREAT WHITE SOUTH LAND. Wow. Out came our Red Parkas, our zodiac lifevests, our rubber boots and every piece of clothing we had, we were going ashore!! Truly amazing, the expedition crew helped us in and out of the zodiacs, sometimes we had a dry landing and sometimes a wet one, always a bit nerve racking in case the water was deeper than my boots! but all the clothes worked, I was always dry and warm enough, except for the fingers during photography. The big warm ski gloves are a bit clumsy when trying to adjust cameras etc. So we saw penguins, in english and pinguines , in ench, and still more penguins. three types, Chinstraps, they were easy to tell as they had a little black chinstrap unr their chins, Adelies and Gentoos, which I still am not sure which are which, one has an orange beak, and the other is the tuxedo penguin. We saw hundreds and smelt lots of penghuin poo. every landing and return to the ship, you had to wash your boots in sea water first, then once on the ship, they had these big scrubbing buckets, for you to put your feet into and scrub offf the penguin poo, and your hiking sticks, then it was walk to a bath of very strong disinfectant, to walk through and put your sticks in, then walk up a deck to the boot puller offs. great things a "v" of wood you put your heel into and just as easy as that pulled your foot out of the boot and walked back to your cabin in your socks, carrying your boots. Outside each cabin was a mat where your boots lived until the next call to go out.
So we were incredibly lucky apparently, as we had 4straight brilliantly sunny days
I will write until the tablet gets tired and then start again!
WEll, I don't have the words to adequately describe this trip. It has been amazingî f rom start to finish. Of course the flight from Adelaide to Sydney was nothing, apart that it was a very hot day, and with parking up the motor hpme and getting to the airport, it was pretty uncomfortable. We spent the night at the Stamford Airport hotel, with a 4am call for the airport. No problems there we board a Lan Airways flight to Aukland, Santiago, and then Buenos Aires. The only food they fed us was bread and ham and cheese! We did get a very small (even by airline standards} meal of veal, but otherwise it was bread and cheese and ham, and bread and ham and cheese, all very stale. and not to my taste as bread stucks in my craw these days, oh well it saved me eating too much. They also weren't too keen to give us drinks either. Lan has gone to the bottom of my airline list.. We had a nice couple of days in Buenos Aires, a really good guide , who was easy to understand, took us on a city tour, including seing Evita's tomb, then we walked to a market and had a delicious and tasty and tender Argentine steak, melted in your mouth, good beef too. So after a walk around La Boca, an area known for where the Tango started, it is very colourful, with a lot of uildings made out of corrugated iron, but painted in all the colours of the rainbow. We were given lots of warnings of thieving and pick pockets etc, and not to wear gold jewellry on the streets, but nothing happened to us, at least. Then another early morning call 3.30am, and we were off to the airport for our flight to Ushuaia. VEry cold when we got there and rainy, they piled us into buses for a tour around the peninsula, including a great bbq lunch, lamb, and salads and wines etc. very tatsy, they bbq the whole side of lamb propped up around a huge fire, 6/8 sides at once, and they serve all the animal, not the heads, but you get the picture, some bits were more boney than others but really tasty . We finally got delivered to the ship about 5 pm.
Our cabin was a bit squeezy, with 3of us in it, but we quickly sorted ourselves out, unpacked and got organised. This is a very luxurious 5 star ship, but an Expedition ship, not a cruise, as they frequently told us. aSo lots of lectures etc, and no bingo! First evening the captain, Le Commandant, warned us of bad weather across Drake Pasage, so we were laying sailing until midnight in hopes of missing the worst!!! Ha! We all went to bed with great trepidation, but morning came and we could see, huge seas, and howling winds, oh mi god!! but, I was happy to be ok. sat and sewed my patchwork blocks, went to lunch, thought iI'll just take a Kwells to be on the safe si, and was very happy all crosing. Most I would say were not so lucky. Carol and I fared very well, but not so Poor Rob, He took to his bed and that was that. Apparently we had seas of 13 metre s, 160km hr winds, the wavees were washing the bridge 5 cks up!! #,and it was a force 9/10 gale. The worst the captain had had, all season! And on the third day it cleard and the sun shone, and we saw icebergs, and icebergs and we were nearly there. THE GREAT WHITE SOUTH LAND. Wow. Out came our Red Parkas, our zodiac lifevests, our rubber boots and every piece of clothing we had, we were going ashore!! Truly amazing, the expedition crew helped us in and out of the zodiacs, sometimes we had a dry landing and sometimes a wet one, always a bit nerve racking in case the water was deeper than my boots! but all the clothes worked, I was always dry and warm enough, except for the fingers during photography. The big warm ski gloves are a bit clumsy when trying to adjust cameras etc. So we saw penguins, in english and pinguines , in ench, and still more penguins. three types, Chinstraps, they were easy to tell as they had a little black chinstrap unr their chins, Adelies and Gentoos, which I still am not sure which are which, one has an orange beak, and the other is the tuxedo penguin. We saw hundreds and smelt lots of penghuin poo. every landing and return to the ship, you had to wash your boots in sea water first, then once on the ship, they had these big scrubbing buckets, for you to put your feet into and scrub offf the penguin poo, and your hiking sticks, then it was walk to a bath of very strong disinfectant, to walk through and put your sticks in, then walk up a deck to the boot puller offs. great things a "v" of wood you put your heel into and just as easy as that pulled your foot out of the boot and walked back to your cabin in your socks, carrying your boots. Outside each cabin was a mat where your boots lived until the next call to go out.
So we were incredibly lucky apparently, as we had 4straight brilliantly sunny days
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