We decided to do a loop from Blue Lagoon back to Reykjavík which took up past this pedestrian bridge between the North American and Eurasian Tectonic Plates. On one side is North America the other Europe and Asia. Eventually many many millennia from now Iceland will be split into two islands. The rift between the two plates separated by 2.5cm per year.
We also stopped at a scenic overlooks on our way to the hotel.
We arrived a few minutes before 10am in the morning in Icelands. After picking up our luggage and rental car we were off to explore. We decided on a relaxing day at Blue Lagoon was just right to keep us awake and adjusting to the new timezone. Eagle-eyed Mac spied Blue Lagoon from the air as we were landing in Keflavik..
Our reservation included bathrobes for the day and lunch reservations at Lava Restaurant for lunch. During lunch the restaurant is open for bath robe dinning.
We also learned to near Blue Lagoon were four earthquakes on Saturday and on Wednesday the volcano began erupting with lava flows.
Chuck had the Catch of the day. After he ate it we asked what fish it was…Arctic Wolffish…we decided it looked better plated that the actual fish!
We spent a couple days exploring Buenos Aires before returning home!
The ship sailed around the Cape Horn from Chile to Argentina allowing us to sail from the Southern Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and the back into the Atlantic Ocean before entering the Beagle Channel named after Darwin’s HMS Beagle. We then toured the town of Ushuaia before boarding our Charter Flight for the 3.5 hour flight back to Buenos Aires.
One of the amazing things about this sailing was a formal night and recap presentation at the end of the trip and a wonderful dinner.
Late Post: we received bad news regarding a family friend at the tail end of our trip and the blog took a back seat. Please enjoy the next few posts to close out our Antarctica and South America Trip.
We returned to the ship after our final continental landing for an amazing BBQ lunch served on the pool deck!
After our amazing lunch! We boarded our Zodiacs one last time for a scenic cruise with a slight twist! The crew set up a supposed engine stall outside of range of the ship 🤔 which ended up being an act for us to celebrate the conclusion of our trip with champagne!
From 66’30S to 66’30N
48 hours for wheels up for our next adventure. Packing is in full swing! Our adventure to the Antarctic in January of 2022 taught us quite a bit about being flexible and a focus on packing lightly.
We’ve decided to utilize a hiking backpack for each of us as our carry on and then an Osprey Farpoint/Fairview for each of us. The Osprey is an awesome bag as it has a zip off day pack that we will use during the trip.
Why a hiking backpack for a carry on? We’ve found that using a hiking backpack as our carry on is easy to navigate through the airport. We each have a Rumpl puffy blanket and backpacking pillow for travel and a hiking backpack let’s us stuff this blanket in the sleeping bag compartment of the backpack.
Our first stop once we land is Blue Lagoon, this carry on has swimsuit, wet bag for after the lagoon.
Love our Osprey Fairview and Farpoint bags for our checked luggage. We will unzip the front backpack and use that for our day trips.
28 January 2022 Morning
64 degrees 50 minutes 96 seconds South 62 degrees 33 minutes 40 seconds
We had our third and final continental landing this morning at Neko Harbor on the Antarctic Peninsula. This landing site had a very busy colony of Gentoo Penguins as well as beautiful ice and snow!
Gentoo Penguins build their nests out of rocks. It is the male penguin’s job to collect rocks from the beach, traverse the penguin highways to the colony and rookery and present its mate with the rock. If the mate rejects the rock, he must take the rock back down the highway to the beach and select another rock to present for building their nest.
We enjoyed spending our time sitting next to the penguin highways. We have lots of videos that we will upload later.
Thursday 27 January 2022
This morning we experienced a second continental landing at Portal Point. This landing was snow covered and defined Antarctica as the White continent.
The Expedition Leader Jorge started a snowball fight with Mac!
Wednesday 26 January 2022 Afternoon
63 degrees 38.70 minutes South 59 degrees 3.45 minutes West
This afternoon the ship anchored in an area of the Antarctic Peninsula called Bone Bay. It was named after Thomas M. Bone, a midshipman on the brig Williams used in exploring the South shetland Islands and Bransfield Strait in 1820.
The ship sent out sounding zodiacs to determine the bay depth and the Captain informed us we were the first cruise ship to stop at this location. We would be going on an expedition zodiac cruise to explore the bay and we did not know what we would find. It was an amazing adventure! We saw leopard seals, volcanic geologic formations, penguins crystal blue water and icebergs.
ThreeGenerationTravels 