Monday 28th February 2005; 1st day at sea

Well, strictly speaking we were in the Beagle Channel, which isn’t exactly open sea, until nearly midnight, having left Ushuaia at 7 p.m.

Leaving Ushuaia

The evening included a talk from the expedition leader doing the induction, a lifeboat drill, which involved putting on your lifejacket – kept in the cabin – and going to the port or starboard side of the ship so that someone could check that you had put the lifejacket on correctly, and the captain’s welcome dinner. This was a four-course meal; soup, salad and main course and pudding, and this was typical of the meals on board, lunch included. There was really too much to eat, and by about half way through the trip I was skipping soup and only taking a small plate of salad. We didn’t see much of the Beagle Channel, being in the dining room until it was nearly dark, so I missed a sight of the Harberton Estancia, established by one of the more sensible missionaries who compiled a dictionary of the local Indian language. Puerto Williams (in Chile) could be seen as a collection of lights on the south side of the Channel. It’s the southernmost town in the world, thought it was really a naval base until a few years ago.