We anchored at Latitude 62° 12.154′ South and Longitude 58° 55.750′ West. It has been over 30 hours since we settled at this location, just off the shore of King George Island. Today, it has been foggy all morning and the weather is expected to improve over time in the next 10 plus or so hours. The expedition team was still attempting to keep the cheers going on board, we had a nice presentation about Antarctica wildlife earlier, followed by a lunch featuring suckling pig and other barbecue goodies. The restaurant wait staff were mostly Filipinos, some of them knew my first name since I had ordered sunny side up every day, and others knew that I drank only iced tea and coffee, they would just bring me a glass as we entered. Mostly very friendly. In fact, Most of the people I have encountered (staff and passengers) are all very nice, except one particular quark team member, he does not like me for some reasons. He is kind of acting like a jerk when I had questions for him, it was just like our channel just not connecting. There are always these kinds of people out in the world, no matter where you are. I am just trying to ignore them and not let them get on my nerves. It's totally not worth it.
We had a dismemberment presentation after lunch, it looked like our flight was back on track, we will fly back to Punta Arenas around 4:30-5pm tomorrow, if the weather pattern stays on the good side as expected. Evidently, it seemed ok on the King George Island side, but the airline has a tiny little reservation for the Punta Arenas end. So, we were advised to remain flexible. Now onto my onward travel, which has been significantly impacted actually. I have two options: (1) stay in Punta Arenas for the night, the cruise line company already paid for the hotel, (2) go straight to Puerto Natales as soon as I arrive in Punta Arenas, it is a 3 hours bus journey. I have contacted my B&B, they would work around my arrival even though it is expected to be after their last check-in time.
On another day, I would probably go with option 1, so I am not so rushed. But it is Christmas, apparently, there will not be any tour running on Dec 25. Chile is a very Catholic country. I hope I will manage to find food. If I do not go to Puerto Natales until Dec 24 morning, that means I will only have one day left (Dec 26) for the tour since I am leaving on Dec 27 to fly back to the US. That may seem like a waste of a trip. So, after talking to my B&B, and cruise line folks, I will try to get on the first flight out of King George Island, and catch an 8pm bus from Punta Arenas airport to Puerto Natales. I will arrive at Puerto Natales well past 11pm, and I will have a tour on Dec 24. But I have Dec 25 completely free from any activities and just relax. At least that is the plan right now. Stars will have all aligned in order to make this happen, the weather has to cooperate so the flight can take off, and I need to make my bus. We shall see.
Today is just activities on board kind of a day, there is a charity auction for Penguins Watch which was quite interesting and funny. For one of the items - a bottle of Antarctic Glacier Water, the guy who opened the box attempting to show it to the bidders dropped the bottle by accident. In the end, he himself bought that bottle. That incident was kind of funny. It is all for a good cause, they raised 4000 something from 10 items being auctioned for the charity.
After the last supper, there was one last fun entertainment before we called off the last night on the cruise. Good memories.
