At sea, the last day, 1/30/16

We left Puerto Montt yesterday about 5 pm and now are steaming along at close to 20 knots to reach Valparaiso by early Sunday morning.

The last day is always a little bittersweet. It's been a wonderful trip, but by day 20 or so people are ready to head home. Well, I did learn of one passenger who's staying aboard to make the same trip, but west to east this time.

We had a couple of talks given by the expedition experts. The last was a Q & A. Lots of questions about the Ozone Hole, easily the most important discovery in Antarctica among other things. The four men agreed that it was a special trip. None had ever seen so many huge tabular icebergs and to have the weather cooperate so we were able to visit every port on the itinerary is almost unheard of.

Now we have documents certifying that we did indeed visit the Antarctic Territory, charts showing our actual route and of course, a photo with the penguin. This is the ship's photographer who drew the short stick and thus spent the morning in the penguin suit posing with the passengers. Silly but a crowd pleaser!

The packing was a struggle. Although I bought just a few (small) things I couldn't get it all in the bags I started with so had to hustle down to the ship's store and buy a collapsible HAL bag for the overflow. I was not the only one...