Dec. 12 - Lovely photos

So, we slipped and slid our way back to the beach area and donned our life jackets. Ivan managed somehow to take these postcard-worthy photos of the Stella at anchor in the bay in front of Pia Glacier:

One thing we had to do, which caused some consternation among those who had worn regular shoes, instead of hiking boots or rubber boots, on these land excursions, was to stop once on board the ship to have our footwear rinsed off by a crew member. Ivan took this photo of me getting by hiking boots "washed:"

After returning to our cabins, we showered and dressed for what had to be one of the strangest onboard events ever! The Stella was going through "Glacier Alley," starting around 6PM. This is a long channel with numerous very large glaciers, each of which was named for the country of the person who discovered it. This struck me as a bit odd because these glaciers could have ALL been discovered by the same person traveling through this channel! They are very close to each other - it took us only about 45 minutes to pass all of them. The first one we passed is called Romanche (not sure why because it's not the name of a country!). This glacier has receeded very far from the edge of the water and the substrate on which it lies is granite. Huge, long waterfalls cascaded down this rocky area. We have no photos of this glacier, but there is an excellent one at this Flickr web address:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/unhooknow/4389173421/. And now for the reason we have a photo of only one of these glaciers. Tradition has it (at least on board the Stella Australis!) that, as the ship passes each glacier, everyone on the 5th deck, coincidentally also the bar level, be served a drink typical of the country for which the glacier was named. So, our first drink was a glass of champagne. Next glacier was Germany for which Ivan had his camera at the ready:

Germany Glacier

For this glacier we were served, what else?, a small glass of beer.  Next up was France (more champagne), then Italy (pizza and wine), and, lastly, Holland (cheese and more beer). Truth be told, by this time, many passengers had no idea what they were drinking or why, but they were having a wonderful time!

Once the glaciers - and alcohol - were out of sight, the crew gave us our Cape Horn briefing for our visit, if conditions were favorable, to Cape Horn National Park and our crossing of the Horn in the Stella, again, if conditions allowed. The idea of this trip around Cape Horn gave me a shiver of delight! I have read a couple of extremely interesting books about maritime travel in those parts in the 1500's and I was hoping with all my heart and soul that the weather would continue cooperating with our intentions.

Sunset on Dec. 12, 2011 was at 10:03PM.