Letter from Atlantia May 2009

We motored away from Balboa away from the south end of the Panama Canal and out into the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. This complicated phrase means nobody knows where the wind is going to come from! Indeed there was very little wind as we passed the container ships, anchored and waiting to go through the canal, and the busy dredger making room for them. We spent the first night about forty miles away at Isla Bona to scrub the bottom and to prepare for our 1000 mile voyage to the Galapagos. There was a trimaran in our little anchorage and they played the bongo drums all night. No doubt to scare away the natives. They managed, since the island was still uninhabited except by the Magnificent frigate birds and the brown pelicans, when we left early in the morning.

We caught the west going current out of the Gulf of Panama and as we left the land we were making 9 knots over the ground. Very useful as we passed a line of general cargo vessels making their way towards Panama City. The voyage took us eight days to the Galapagos Islands taking watches of three hours each, 24/7! The ITCZ was quite flat except where the sea appeared to boil with counter currents. These areas were directly above the meeting areas of the tectonic plates on the sea floor. It made us wonder exactly what was happening down there! We escaped to calmer waters near Galapagos and had company most nights of tropic birds and terns flying around the boat. No doubt they were trying to catch the flying fish which seemed to take off in flocks above the waves as they escaped our crashing bows.

A brown booby hitched a ride for 24 hours.

We were visited by dolphins and we saw some whales which we thought were Sei Whales. (similar to, but slightly smaller than the blue whales.)

We crossed the equator from north to south on the way. The first time Atlantia has done so. There was a small libation for Neptune and a glass of wine each for us. It broke our taboo on drinking whilst on voyage, but it was a special occasion.

We arrived at San Cristobal, the most easterly island and the centre of administration of Galapagos, about lunch time. We had motored the last 100 miles since there was no wind. We were greeted by sea lions and blue footed boobies as we passed a huge pinnacle of rock sticking out of the sea.

It looks like a football boot from one angle and a sleeping lion from another. The name is kicker rock, nae doot after the fitba, which of course they are all mad about in South America.

The Galapagos Islands belong to Ecuador. Ecuador is the only known democracy ruled by Communists who apparently offered every man and woman a cash handout of a reasonable description if they were voted in. They were!! Galapagos is a long way from Ecuador though ( about 650 miles) and they are reasonably autonomous although there are still political rumblings. There was a presidential election during our 20 days there and the place was full of flags and the odd loud speaker. We tried to find out who won, but this seemed a closely guarded secret. Perhaps our Spanish wasn’t good enough to ask properly which is probably a bit nearer the truth. These are our last Spanish speaking islands for a while, the next being French and English.

The islands of Galapagos are all volcanic and black rocks seem to abound. We were restricted to visiting San Cristobal which cost us about $250 for mooring fees and clearance costs. It would have cost us a lot more if we had visited other islands, probably about $1500 U.S. for the four days we had thought about, for going to Isabella and Santa Crux. We decided to solely explore San Cristobal and go diving there instead.

We had a wonderful time visiting the giant tortoises and swimming with the sharks around kicker rock. Our dive guides on Chalotours were very pleasant and spoke good English. We can recommend them to anybody visiting San Cristobal. We went diving with sea lions and at one time when we were snorkelling in a shallow bay we had 16 black sea turtles around us.

It was of course at that point our ‘waterproof ’ camera decided not to be waterproof and nothing we have done since will persuade it to take another picture. We did however manage to retrieve most of the previous pictures which show sea lions in endearing poses.

The tour guides took snorkelling parties as well, to swim with the sea lions. One sea lion actually nipped Margaret on the leg. We were not sure whether it was jealous for Will or was just playing. In any event it did not break the skin so it was just the shock that was the problem.

The giant tortoises were wonderful. At one time there were at least 100,000 tortoises on the islands but the whalers, buccaneers, Jack Aubrey (master and commander fame!), Darwin and others decided they would be good as food and so the total number now is less than 1000 in San Cristobal, although slightly more on other islands. They have also developed slightly differently on different islands with different shapes of shell. Some domed, some flattened. They can live to 180 years old, if they are allowed to. There are sanctuaries on each of the islands nowadays, so it looks as if their future should be assured, but only just in time.

Funnily enough although discovered by the Spanish and annexed by Ecuador in the early 19th Century, the Galapagos were not really inhabited until the mid nineteenth century. Then one of the islands became the home for convicts and another for Norwegians who hoped to settle. Neither settlement worked despite the canning machinery sent out from Scotland to help! There is one surviving fragment of a canning machine in the museum on San Cristobal. It was only in the late 20th Century that the Ecuadorian government decided that Charles Darwin was a great hero and started a tourist industry.

Presently there are 20,000 tourists a year visiting the islands, with a permanent population of about 6000. Since this will work out at approximately six local people to each tourist at any given time, there is probably room for some expansion. They are being very cautious however and we are glad to have been there before any tourist explosion. Certainly the locals (mostly imported from Ecuador) are very pleasant and helpful and we were made to feel very much at home.

The town in San Cristobal, in what used to be called Chatham Bay and is now Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, has about 2000 souls, quite a number of small shops, one international bank, a police station, a university (from USA) outpost with about 500 students, and the harbour masters office.

The immigration office is brand new and for some reason is about a mile away from the airport and also a mile away from the harbour. One room is used in a really splendid facility built for 30 people. A taxi is required to visit them although this only costs about $2 U.S. The currency in the islands is the U.S. dollar and they still use silver coins for dollars, unlike the USA where they have been phased out. In addition to the sea lions, which play on the beach outside the harbour masters office,

and the giant tortoises and blue footed boobies, (the gannet is part of the booby family or visa versa),( this photo is of a young booby)

there is one species in the Galapagos Islands that will not be found anywhere else in the world. That is, the marine iguana.

This iguana is coloured black to merge into the colour of the volcanic rocks on the shore, and swims under water for most of its food. The food is the algae on the rocks, sometimes about 30 feet below the surface of the sea. There seemed to be plenty of these iguanas about, although our camera gave up before we were able to take a picture of one under water. There were plenty above water to snap though!

Despite the rather sleepy town, the authorities do not let yachtsmen go anywhere else unless it is with a national park guide. The minimum cost for one of these would have been about $600 to accompany us on a tour of the islands, so needless to say, yachtsmen tended to stay in the same harbour, either Chatham Bay (Wreck Bay or Puerto Baquerizo Moreno Bay) on San Cristobal, or Academy Bay at Santa Crux. We didn’t hear of any yachtsmen cruising in their own boat, although one or two did take the aeroplane or fast boat to other islands. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy their tours, especially the horseback ride to the volcano on Isabella. The volcanoes on all the islands are still classified as ‘live’ and indeed one of the remoter volcanoes erupted so strongly as to evoke an ‘ash warning’ for the surrounding 100 miles. Fortunately the wind was blowing the other way so we felt no ill effects. Our last tourist visit on San Cristobal was made to the volcano’s caldera.

On the way up the mountain (by taxi) we passed various plantations of bananas, coffee, oranges and other fruits and vegetables. They seem to get moisture from the considerable cloud cover surrounding the mountain. Indeed we bought some coffee beans which we hope we can share with you.

The caldera seems to have ferns and heath surrounding it that reminded us of the moorlands of Scotland. The water filled caldera is the only place in the world where one can see magnificent frigate birds actually flying into the water. They do this to take a bath. The fresh water rids them of unwanted salt which lands on them from the sprays of the ocean, or inadvertently dipping. The bath is quite deliberate. Clean birds indeed, as well as fabulous air acrobatics.

The island is supplied by numerous small ships that come in from Ecuador. Although the supplies appear plentiful and there are numerous small shops, the choice is not wide and the cost is about 60% up on that in Panama City.

The water taxis were cheap however at a dollar a ride, which is just as well since there appears to be nowhere to leave a dinghy on shore. We therefore took water taxis to and from the boat when we went ashore.

It was good chatting with the locals, even if it was mostly grunts and sign language. The small birds were delightful, and although there are only about three different types on San Cristobal each one has a subspecies of about seven different types, each one with a different shaped bill to accomplish different tasks ( cracking seedpods, ground foraging, simple fruits, etc.).

The herons, pelicans and storks were good too.

The juvenile Sally Lightfoot crabs were black, turning orange and finally red when fully grown. They were quite striking against the black volcanic rocks.

The most endearing memory of the Galapagos islands will be of the Australian friends we made there and the sea lions that sometimes sat on the back of their boats!!

The next leg is 3000 miles across the Pacific to the French Marquesas islands, Burial place of Gaugin. Robert Louis Stevenson also visited the islands in his travels with his family. More about that next letter. Hope you like the pics.

Love Atlantia

P.S. Will was 60 on the next leg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep it quiet though!!

Letter From Atlantia April 09

Panama really could be the most fabulous holiday destination for Europeans. The wild life is wonderful, the climate during the dry season from November until May is warm, if sometimes a little hot when there is no breeze, and it has one of the Wonders of the Civil Engineering world to admire. The Canal. It also has a considerable number of National Parks, and in Panama city they are constructing the second highest building in the world. Owned by a bank of course. The drawback to this wonderful place? A high percentage of the people, certainly in the canal zone area, seem to want to ignore any complicated government restrictions or rules, and make a fast buck for themselves from the visitor. The result is that we don’t know what is true or untrue here, or whether we will be robbed or thrown in jail unless we hand over money to someone somewhere. This seems to be the case from taxi drivers to, apparently, the top of the tree. The latter part of the statement comes from people who live here. A very short sighted policy. Even the supermarket in Colon has taken two additional identical visa payments from us for groceries we bought there. All deductions at the at the same time, and all allowed by visa. The majority of the population we have met here are charming however, and once they have tried to mislead you {either successfully or unsuccessfully} they seem to settle down to being quite friendly.

Thank heavens though for some of the expats and visiting yachtsmen we have meet here, and who have helped preserve our sanity. One such couple were Hans and Marijke from Holland. We met at Shelter Bay marina whilst watching the howler monkeys up in the trees throw twigs and leaves down on us. Apparently David Attenborough had once come here to make a film about the monkeys. He only needed to go about two hundred yards into the forest from the restaurant to look as if he was in deepest jungle. Perhaps he talked quietly and rolled over for them as well.

Hans is the Project Manager for Boskalis Westminster dredging in Colon. They are presently dredging for the extension of a container port but are quoting for the dredging for the new locks which will double the capacity of traffic in the Panama Canal. They were delightful people and took us to an old Spanish fort, called Fort San Lorenzo, at the beginning of the river Chagres which was in a lush tropical National Park.

The River Chagres reaches half way across the isthmus and during the wet season was the main artery for transportation of goods from one side of Panama to the other, before the railway in the 1840s which took many of the gold miners to their destinies in California, and some back again.. The river also saw the transportation of all the gold from Peru and Mexico to Spain, and reputedly has seen more riches travel down between its banks than any other river in the world. Nowadays it is a sleepy backwater cut off by the canal, although there are reputedly gold mines near its sides.

The buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan was well known here. He was a Welshman who rose from the ranks, and who by stealth and cunning sacked many of the Spanish strongholds of the mid seventeenth century around the Spanish Main. He finished up as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica with vast estates there, since he always sailed with some sort of letter of authority from the British Government and always paid about 12% of his plunder to the British Crown. He overwhelmed our fort of San Lorenzo and took 1400 buccaneers up the river Chagres and then overland to sack Panama city in 1671. They took two weeks to hack their way through the jungle the 55 miles to Panama City and were, by then, starving. They fought 2100 Spanish foot soldiers and 600 cavalry and a herd of stampeding cows, defeating the Viceroy, Don Perez de Guzman, who miraculously survived the attack. Regrettably the town went up in flames and Henry Morgan had to try and save the town himself. He lost a great deal of ransom money due to the conflagration. The average Buccaneer only came away with about £50 a head and Morgan himself with about £1000. Another £10000 went to the Duke of York as the Lord High Admiral and about £6500 to his brother the King. The Panamanians call Morgan a Pirate on all their publicity.

Hans and Marijke took us around Colon in their car. The city had indeed been beautiful about a hundred years ago when they were building the canal and the railway ran properly. Nowadays the train runs once a day each way, so if you want to go to Panama city from Colon you have to stay Overnight in Panama City. In addition Colon certainly does live up to its medical name with mouldering Spanish style colonial houses and a crime wave on the streets that makes it difficult to step out of the car and over the pavement into an adjacent shop without being mugged on the way. Wires festoon the streets and the traffic is always in chaos.

However we are totally cheered up by the busses, which were school bus legacies from the Americans before they gave the Canal to the Panamanians in 1999. The busses are now very brightly painted, and although they make a frightful noise and drive very erratically, they seldom seem to crash. We have seen one or two broken down beside the road. No doubt they make good chicken coops too.

San Cristobel, just outside Colon, thrives on its duty free zone and visitors come here from all over South America for cheap washing machines, computers , etc.. One yachtsman had just bought a flat screen t.v. for his boat, but it came without the essential external speaker wires, so he had to take it back again. 15 miles on the marina bus across the Canal. The bird and wild life here are marvellous. Besides the monkeys throwing bits of wood at us we have seen sloths,

crocodiles,

coati mundi {brown racoons},

agouti, iguanas, geckos, pilot whales,

jumping sting rays, cara cara, hawks,

pelicans. parrots, frigate birds, cormorants {millions of them},

and we have even had a pair of panamanian swallows trying to build a nest inside the mainsail cover. There are two very unhappy swallows here. Will has taken away their nest and closed the gap, so their entrance is no more. No swallows eggs to cook on the way to the Galapagos either.

The Canal authorities are really quite efficient and the waiting time between application and transit is only about five days. This time last year it was about six weeks due to a go slow. The cost for our boat, in total was about $1500 US and the passage took an evening and the day after, with an overnight stay in Gatun Lake. A yacht requires four line handlers as well as the skipper, so we hired a local Panamanian and imported two very experienced line handlers/operators from Scotland. Our son and daughter, Stephen and Susan.

It was wonderful to see them again, and for them to see such a marvel of Engineering achievement;-- and Atlantia with her new coat of paint.

The Canal was built between 1904 and 1914 by the Americans for a ship the size of the Titanic, and they made a first class job of the project. From The east side there are three locks at Gatun which take you to a man made lake 30 metres above sea level. Then follows about 20 miles of flooded valley where you can still see the tops of the trees. The jungle covered islands are very pretty, almost like Lake Windermere, but larger.

The famous River Chagres flows in here but is dammed at the upper side to prevent unwanted currents and to provide hydroelectric power to run the machinery of the lock gates and the lighting at the locks.

After the man made lake comes the Culebra (snake) cut. This runs through the main mountain spine cutting one side of Panama off from the other. Once past this dangerous section, where they are still cutting and dredging,

we came to the Pedro Miguel locks, followed shortly after by the Miraflores locks and the Millennium Suspension Bridge.

It was then under the Bridge of the Americas and out to sea past Balboa. It was much more fun going on Atlantia than it would have been going with Henry Morgan. We didn’t get £50 back though.

When travelling the Canal between the Caribbean sea and the Pacific Ocean we actually traversed north west to south east. Rather bizarre Prior to the Americans completing the canal, the famous Frenchman, Ferdinand .de Lesseps, who had successfully completed the Suez Canal, attempted another sea level canal, cut across the isthmus. They started in 1880 but had to give up due to the high loss of life and the engineering impossibility of the project. As our son Stephen pointed out, it is not possible to build a sea level canal when one end has no tidal difference and the other has a tidal range of twenty feet. You either need a lock or you have to plug against a raging current half of the time. No doubt De Lesseps would not have died in ignominy and his son would not have gone to prison if they had had Stephen as their consulting engineer in the nineteenth century.

None of the successful American project would have been possible if it hadn’t been for Dr. William Gorgas, an expert in tropical medicine. He eradicated almost all the mosquitoes in Panama prior to the construction. It was only just becoming generally known that mosquitoes carry yellow fever and malaria, and despite the cost of fumigation and providing piped drinking water and spraying oil on standing water, he persuaded the American authorities that his theories, that mosquitoes carried the diseases, and not miasma{general bad air}, were correct. The French had lost about 22000 souls on the project, including the chief engineers wife, daughter and son in law to yellow fever and other tropical diseases. They had built excellent hospitals but had put the legs of the hospital beds in basins of water to prevent the ants getting into bed with the patients. Unfortunately the standing water was a breeding ground for mosquitoes which subsequently killed yet more patients. Part of the huge death toll was also caused by the construction of the Culebra cut, which created many land and mud slides that rained down on the construction workers. These continue today and looking at the cut material you can see why, with the many differing rock and soil types and obvious slip planes.

When we traversed the canal, and came to the locks, our advisor{pilot}, who was a very nice Panamanian man, put us in between two smaller yachts, both French. Stephen and our professional line handler were very good with their long lines on the bow of Atlantia and the two French line handlers on the boats on either side of us were appalling, shouting at each other the whole time through the, mercifully short, lock passages. Atlantia was protected from the walls by two rather large and voluble bumpers, although Susan was also continually pushing fenders down between us to ensure we arrived in the Pacific without a scratch. No mean effort.

The pilot said he didn’t really like going through the Canal with French boats because the crew was too excitable. We can see why now, although many of the French are charming people. We were grateful for the numerous tires we also carried on either side and were pleased when a fellow yachtsman, about to go through the canal the opposite way, came over to ask if we could give him half our tyres, now that we had completed the passage. We persuaded him to take them all. We told him,’ you can never have too many tyres’. He looked very smart covered in tyres as he made his way to the canal the following day.

After the Canal we spent a night at the deserted Isla Bona about twenty miles south of Panama City. A tiny island, it is home to about two thousand brown pelicans and two thousand frigate birds, as well as turkey vultures and a couple of ospreys.

There seemed to be continuous aerial battles between the frigate birds and the pelicans, over fish, and of all things, small branches. Strange, since we didn’t see any nests. No doubt it is the beginning of the nesting season, although frigate birds are not supposed to breed here, only in Barbuda and Galapagos. We think we have found an in between spot, new to science. We all went swimming. It was cold.

We returned to Panama city via the holiday island of Taboga whose anchorages were full of sports fishing boats and people lounging on the beaches beneath colourful umbrellas.

It is the island where Gauguin rested after a stint digging the canal, with 75000 other people, and before he came to his final resting place in the western Pacific, and also before he sold a picture or two. Many people used to go to Taboga to escape the yellow fever, and pirates used to plot their campaigns from there. The only plotting we regrettably had was Stephen and Susan’s exit from Panama. A suicidal taxi driver took us to the International airport south of Panama city, where we dropped Stephen and Susan for their flight back to Glasgow via Amsterdam. The cost of the flights was apparently quite economic and it was certainly of great assistance to have them help us through the Canal. Their motto is now ‘No Canal Too Large’.

Having discovered that Margaret’s passport would not have six months remaining for our entry into New Zealand later this year, and that immigration officers have been overzealous with their stamping of Will’s passport, we decided to have them renewed here at the British Embassy in Panama City. It had only taken Allison, a yachting friend and fellow traveller, five days to have her passport renewed, and she knew all the ropes. She even took us to the Embassy. If we had known of the sorry episode of inefficiency and ineptitude that was to follow, despite the oozing charm that it was excused with, we might have taken the chance of renewing Margaret’s passport in New Zealand despite the time gap. We hope to get our passports back on Monday for a departure Tuesday, nearly twenty days after we handed in our forms and having paid the British Government for extra rapid service.{that money will be refunded to us, we are glad to report}. We have now stocked up twice for an imminent departure but will go to the supermarket again tomorrow for, hopefully, a final run. We have been royally entertained by our friends however, here at the anchorage at La Playita, Balbao. It is about a mile from the yacht club at Balbao, but unlike the club this anchorage is free, and is not full up. Allison and Derek from Falmouth {the original one} are on their yacht Kalida and had a great party last night, although we ran out of ice. They taught us to dry meat by hanging it in the rigging. Apparently you can also do this with fish. We look forward to trying.

Peter was given a birthday party on Green Coral. Peter and Rosie are from Switzerland { Zurich} and Rosie has helped us with a couple of necessary translations whilst shopping. She seems to speak innumerable languages, all very well. Other new friends left yesterday, for the Galapagos islands. Gordon and Anne, on board Equinox, are from Port Edgar Yacht Club, about ten miles away from the Royal Forth Yacht club in Edinburgh. A small world, and we didn’t know them before we arrived here. They are doing a fast track, two year trip, around the world before settling in Italy. We will see them in the Adriatic if not before.

Whilst waiting for our passports we have also been out to the Las Perlas islands about 30 miles south of Panama City. We really enjoyed ourselves in the remote anchorages; pearls set in a silver sea. One of the anchorages was just off a long strand of golden sand backed by coconut palms. Idyllic.

The natives still dive for pearls there, as they have done for over 700 years. The 24 carat Peregrina pearl that adorned Mary Tudor’s crown came from here. The pearl divers gave us a cheery wave as they came back from their fishing grounds.

We sang the Pearl Fishers Song for them, but we don’t think they recognised it over the ‘putt putt’ of their single cylinder diesel engine. We waved back. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of the world they didn’t come alongside to sell us anything. Not a single pearl. We hear they can stay under water for four minutes searching for oysters, very impressive. A feature of evolution?

Our next port of call is the Galapagos islands. Just to prove that evolution also continues in language we have heard them called the Gallop Paygos islands. Admittedly we believe the gentleman was American. Survival of the fittest? Darwin, who was Josiah Wedgwood’s son in law, was the author of the 1859 publication ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Species in the Struggle for Life’. His publication revolutionised the thinking in the western world about Creation, and the reason for there being so many species of living creatures. He is supposed to have gained his basic ideas for the earth shattering book in the Galapagos Islands. His thoughts were also crystallized and spurred by another great , but little known botanist Alfred Wallace, whose exploits in the Spice Islands in 1858 gave him similar, but perhaps more coherent, thoughts about the survival of the fittest. There is an excellent book on the subject of Alfred Wallace’s travels in Indonesia by the well known historian and traveller Tim Severin, whose book, ‘The Spice Islands Voyage, In search of Wallace,’ published by Abacus Travel, Will has just finished reading. We really look forward to visiting both of these areas to see the origins of the theories that now count alongside the earths religions and philosophies. Whilst here we have also explored the old town of Panama city, which dates to its rebuilding after the sack by Sir Henry Morgan but most of which has fallen into genteel, and sometimes complete, decay. It will eventually be restored, although the Panamanians seem more intent on pouring their money into multi-storey’s at the moment. Some of the old town is very beautiful.

We are also trying to sort out the over exuberance of the Visa people and have filled up with fuel and water. Must keep busy. You can never have too many tires. Hope you like the Pics

Love ATLANTIA. P.S. you will notice no exclamation marks on this letter. This is because some of the keys on the computer have given up including that one. Next time there may be no eees or capital ts. Could make for exciting reading .

Letter from Atlantia March 2009

One of the excellent facts about sailing into Cartagena is that you just give all your papers to an Agent at the Club Nautico Marina and he takes them to the various government departments who return them stamped and officially entered into their logs. Our Agent was David who spoke very passable English. Some people said he overcharged but we certainly could not tell since there are no published figures that we could find. That’s Columbia for you like any other place in South America. Very different from the regime in Britain. The poor tax payer seems to foot the bill for everything there, rather than the user. We thought that the cost of 120 US dollars was quite reasonable for our three month stay in Columbia.

Cartagena is a vibrant city with both old and new parts. It is set at the end of a 2 mile long lagoon with old fortifications at the two entrances. The old town, the buildings of which date from about the eighteenth century, is completely ringed by walls, which in some places still have canons poking out through the crenulations.

The streets inside the old town are narrow, with beautiful old houses to either side. The houses are mostly built around internal courtyards and one has to enter through massive doors to see the buildings properly.

Rumour has it that a tunnel leads from one of the old buildings under the water to the massive fortress of San Felipe. We were not able to go down the tunnel although we did go through tunnels inside the fortress. It was where they kept all the South American gold prior to shipping it to the King of Spain.

Outside the old town, which bans cars from the streets, the buildings are quite modern with many high rise apartment blocks. The area where Club Nautico is situated is called Manga. It has some very old lovely houses, interspersed with high rises and a very convenient supermarket, although they speak no English there at all

.

There are a fair number of street hawkers selling coffee or fruit and vegetables from hand carts. The coffee was excellent and very cheap.

The Club Nautico benefits from the fact that the rise and fall of the tide is only about one foot. This means that the boats can moor med style (bow or stern to) to a jetty and not worry about climbing stone quay walls or sinking into the mud. Apparently this is not true of the Pacific where tides are 20 foot on the western side of the Panama Canal. The Club Nautico is run by a Scotsman, ‘John’, who was originally from the family of one of the jute barons of Dundee. Since that family business stopped making linoleum and other jute products in the eighties, what better to turn your hand to than running a marina in Columbia. He married a local lady and they have three beautiful children. He is very good at looking after all the American cruising fraternity who drift by there as well as the occasional Brit.

We were anchored next to Consort, a British yacht with Janet and Duncan on board. He was a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. One of the ones that used to scare Will half to death whilst he was quietly fishing on the Tay! Duncan was forgiven however when it was learned that they had a farm in Newport, Pembrokeshire, where Will’s ancestors, on his mother’s side, were Master Mariners, indeed one was an artist as well! We became good friends and since Janet’s Spanish was so good they helped us find the cheapest white wine shop in Cartagena.

They also enabled us to go to the concert in the new Convention Centre, given by the Korean Festival Orchestra. They played Beethoven’s fifth, Delius’ ‘in a country garden’ and Mozart’s 29th Symphony, as well as John Williams’ Pirates of the Caribbean. There was no programme so regrettably the other pieces were not identified. South America generally is like that. All hustle and bustle and show. Sometimes an excellent product, but the explanation is usually missing. So stay a stranger!!

Overall however, and despite sticking out as obviously tourists, we can recommend Cartagena ( pronounced Cartaheyna) as a genuine and friendly place to go to. The people were helpful with our dreadful Spanish (nearly non existent) and tried to speak what little English they could. Believe it or not, the drivers of the donkeys and carts seemed to speak the best English, shouting out “hello my friends, where do you come from?” as they trotted past on their carts pulled by a small pony or donkey. The animals did not seem totally out of place on the well metalled roads near the walled city, being passed, by a hundred yellow taxis (no bigger than fiat puntos) and many huge juggernaut tractors pulling large containers on the dusty roads away from the port close to the marina. The horses looked reasonably well fed and the donkeys seemed usually to have some shade when they were being rested next to the side of the road. The feeling was a little like watching Steptoe and Son all over again! Although Wilfred Bramble had a straw hat and a large black moustache to go with his swarthy but withered body.

There is a new shopping mall in Cartagena called the Plaza Caribe. Cartagena should actually be called Cartagena des India’s, which is included in the title of Plaza Caribe. Cartagena of course is named after Cartagena in Spain, which in turn was founded by Hannibal’s father when he went to Spain from Carthage. Plaza Caribe has a huge ‘Home Store’ which is similar to the British B&Q, and a large well stocked (except for the alcohol) supermarket. There are myriad shops, amongst which is a John Lewis type ‘Pan Americana,’ where we bought yet another camera prior to our visit to Antarctica. This time a Panasonic with 10 megapixels and an 18x optical zoom. This is the one we use when we aren’t under water or in danger of being thrown about! The centre has only just been finished and makes a welcome addition to the rather archaic shops that seem to populate Cartagena. The local Bank of Columbia was very helpful in providing cash, since no one,(not even the marina) seems to accept debit or credit cards. Apart from the time of carnival, which was in full swing when we arrived in November, the general population seem reasonably honest and we had no trouble.

If coming to this region, avoid Venezuela where violent crime is on the increase, and visit Columbia where the President has nearly managed to control the drug and smuggling trade and also the natural inclination of the South Americans to pilfer. (Tis the same the world over unfortunately!) Spanish helps, but is not totally essential, although we would have probably had a slightly better time, than if we could only say “dos vinos blanco por favour.” A V being pronounced as a B!!

Atlantia was hauled out of the water in Cartagena onto a very dusty yard hidden amongst the mangrove swamps. We not only had her antifouled but also the topsides painted with two part epoxy. She really does look fantastic, virtually brand new. It is a pity we are just about to travel through the Panama Canal where no doubt much damage will occur, despite the ten extra rubber tyres we will be using as fenders (well wrapped up of course).

We left Cartagena rather sadly. It had been a great base whilst we travelled to Antarctica, and is a very vibrant and cultured city full of history. Only Sir Frances Drake and a seventeenth century French Count managed to sack it and take away the Spanish bullion destined for Europe. Admiral Vernon of the British Navy in the mid eighteenth century was beaten away by a one legged, one armed, one eyed Spanish nobleman, Don Blas de Lezo. There is a statue to him.

Admiral Vernon with his vast fleet attacked Portobello instead, This time successfully. Our first port of call away from Cartagena was the Rosario Islands. They belong to Columbia and are visited by day trip boats from various ports. They are only about 30 miles from Cartagena so it was a nice mornings sail. They are coral islands, with no tide, so the holiday homes are very close to the water. So close sometimes that they have been abandoned.

We sailed ‘Dipper’, our Walker Bay dinghy, over to an island that had a hotel and an aquarium . The aquarium was closed. We don’t know why it was closed since we were within the hours of opening stated on the ticket office door. It would open tomorrow they said. Very Caribbean! There were a number of fish models hanging up and a large glass tank to look at. That sufficed for us.

We sailed Dipper around the largest islands, leaving Atlantia safely at anchor. The waves were pretty high, crashing onto the reefs on the North side of the island, but our little boat with its geriatric rubber ring around it worked really well and we only had one wave on board as we broad reached between the reefs and into calmer water.

The aviary on the biggest island was most impressive, and with free entry a good place for yachtsmen to visit. It is suggested however that a small piece of jewellery, made by the caretakers wife, is purchased to help the local economy. We bought a beautiful silver filigree bracelet for Margaret.

From the Rosarios we sailed to Isla Bernard where we stayed the night, although we were boarded by the coastguard in the morning. They were very polite and spoke good English. They said they had been keeping an eye on us overnight to make sure we were safe. It was in fact very reassuring since we were the only yacht there. The way out was interesting since we had to go about three miles from the island before we could cross the reefs to the open sea. Even then we only had two metres of space between the keel and the sea bed.

Our overnight trip to the San Blas Islands was only eventful when a large ship, which had been stationary until we reached it , suddenly decided to start its engines and turn hard to starboard., just as we were passing 200 metres away on its starboard side! Will had to call the Captain on the radio and make him stop his vessel, otherwise there may well have been a collision. All was well in the end though, and we made landfall the following morning at Puerto Escoses and Fort St Andrew in Panama. This is a beautiful bay surrounded by jungle with only a few timber thatched huts to show any signs of civilisation. The howler monkeys and parakeets were much in evidence, making a considerable noise, although hidden from view.

Puerto Escoses of course means Port of the Scots. This was the site of the disastrous Scottish Darien expeditions of 1698-1702. The Scots decided to colonise the area to create a merchants way between the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Darien Company ended up being Scottish funded only, since the English King, William of Orange, was trying to make a treaty with the King of Spain at the time. The English therefore boycotted the Darien Rights Issue leaving £300,000 of funding entirely in Scottish hands .The pope of course had declared half of South America to be Spanish. He meant to give all of South America to the Spanish, but he miscalculated his longitudes and Brazil was claimed by the Portuguese. Quite why the Pope was empowered to give any of South America to anybody is perhaps another question. The poor Scots therefore, blockaded and attacked by the Spanish who thought the land was theirs, and further attacked by Malaria and Yellow Fever, gave up the colony and returned home. 2800 went out there and only 800 managed to get back to Scotland. We passed Roca Escoses on our way past fort St Andrew. It had a nice white top to it.

There is a nearby town of timber huts where Kuna Indians live, called Caledonia. It probably contains the only human evidence of the ‘Scottish Disaster’ .

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We didn’t land there but made our way through an channel inside an archipelagos of islands, sometimes only 400 metres wide, up to Usutupu, escaping the dug out canoes that tried to head us off to sell us fish or molas. A mola is a reverse appliqué, intricately embroidered, cloth panel, usually about 450 centimetres square (1’6”). We did buy some in the end but not while we were motor sailing.

We found some other yachts at Usutupu and were quite pleased to be able to speak to somebody else after the wilderness jungle of Puerto Escoses. We even found internet on the island in a local school which we were able to use. It seemed incongruous amongst all the bamboo walled thatched huts.

We were shown round the island by a gentleman called Toyo who owned a local store and showed us his wife’s molas which are traditionally attached to a blouse at back and front. We took him to lunch in return for his guiding and had the local soup with bits of chicken and yucca plant in it. It was quite tasty.

We sailed dipper up the local river, past the cemetery where the ancestors live, and saw some beautiful white ibis and small blue herons. We also saw a kingfisher.

The Kuna Indians who inhabit the San Blas Islands and the East coast of the Darrien Peninsular are descended from the Carib Indians who at one time inhabited the whole of the Caribbean. (Hence the name.) They are semi autonomous within Panama and run their own villages by a sort of commune. All land is communal and the men work in the morning at whatever is dictated by the commune and then in the afternoon they all congregate in the village hall as a commune to decide what each will do the following day. The women are supposed to stay at home and make molas. We bought one or two molas and a replica of a dug out canoe or yula at Isla Tigres. We haven’t tested it in the bath yet!

The outer San Blas Islands are supposed to be uninhabited except for some coconut pickers. The coconut in this part of the world counts as currency and can be swapped for almost anything. Will’s father always said “money doesn’t grow on trees” but it does in the San Blas Islands! They really are beautiful, especially in the outer islands where the palm trees come down to golden beaches and turquoise water.

We even had a dug out canoe with a whole family alongside the boat trying to sell molas and bracelets. Margaret was able to help the rash that the baby had behind her knees by giving them some dermatological cream to rub on it to cure her. After a suitable examination of course.

We had a splendid sail down to Panama with 20 to 30 knots of wind behind us. We stopped for one night behind Isla Linton, just North of Portobello. Linton obviously got around since there is both an East and West Linton in Scotland. It was a crowded anchorage and quite rolly. A huge squall made one of the fishing boats drag its anchor just prior to our leaving, but since we followed the squall down to Panama we seldom had more than 25 knots of wind, occasionally 35 knots and all behind us. The waves were at least 10-15 feet.

We were lucky enough to find a berth in Shelter Bay Marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal, since the Panama canal Yacht Club is now closed and has apparently been bulldozed. We are tied to an old rusting barge which they are threatening to paint, but since there is nowhere else to go beggars can’t be choosers.

. However the walks in the jungle round here are fantastic. We were attacked by a troop of howler monkeys on one of our walks who threw bits of branch and twigs at us. There are no facilities for yachtsmen except in the one marina here. Obviously a chance for someone to build another marina.

We are looking forward to our expert Scottish Canal navigators joining us from Scotland next week. Yes, Stephen and Susan are joining us for the hard work. We will report again when we get to the Pacific end of the canal. Hope you like the pics.

Love Atlantia.

Letter from Atlantia February 2009

Over half the time we had on the M.V. Amsterdam was spent at sea, which in our opinion is the major point of a cruise. We did however visit a number of interesting places and indeed had a ‘post cruise tour’ to the Iguazu Falls, of which more later.

The wind was blowing up to 30 knots as we left Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, but the seas were relatively calm and the stabilisers on the ship worked well. It was hardly noticeable we were at sea, and although the albatrosses and giant petrels dropped behind, the weather became distinctly warmer as we headed north. It took two and a half days to cover the 1100 miles between Port Stanley and the Rio de La Plata. We awoke on the morning of December 30th to see the water almost flat calm, but a very brown muddy colour. We were passing a light ship at the entrance to the one way channel up the river to Buenos Aires. The buoys marking the channel (red to starboard!) were close to on either side and we were told there was less than ten feet of clearance between our hull and the bottom. It was a good job the river pilot knew where he was going.

Buenos Aires is a modern bustling city, quite similar to the centre of London in many ways, with tall skyscrapers and elegant 19th Century buildings. There is a large boulevard down the centre of the city though, called the Avido 9 de Julio (the Avenue of the 9th July. We never did find out why) It is a little like the Champs Elysee in that it is wide and extremely difficult to cross. We had to cross it in two leaps over the twelve lanes of traffic and car parking under a grass and tree lined strip in the centre. There are modern buildings on either side of the avenue, with a beautiful early 20th Century theatre looking a bit like the National Gallery in London.

The city almost had a European feel to it, although the politics here have more of a medieval flavour about them, with hero worship, plotting, silly wars, and thousands of people who were quietly ‘disappeared’. The latter occurred in the nineteen seventies, when young people were apparently murdered en masse by the ruling military powers. A bleak time for Argentina.

The country is now ruled by a democratically elected government and the President is an attractive lady, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner.

There are pictures of her, and other world leaders out side the Presidential Palace, The Casa Rosada, where Eva Peron used to wave to the crowds in the early 20th Century. She died of cancer at the age of 33 and her tomb is very elaborate, amongst many other incredibly elaborate tombs, in the best cemetery in the city. Margaret visited the tomb. Eva Peron’s story of rags to riches has caught the imagination of the whole world, helped of course by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s musical ‘Evita’.

The posh area of Buenos Aires amazed us. In between imposing and stylish high rise apartments and down the leafy avenues amongst the foreign embassies were some large and ornate nineteenth century chateaux. Some are now hotels but others look as if they are still used as private residences, and others are closed up until their owners decide to come up to town for the season.

The European atmosphere prevailed until we heard gunfire, what sounded like a bomb, and then we saw about a thousand armed motor cycle police gathered behind the Presidential Palace. Admittedly the bomb could have been London, when we lived there in the 1970’s, but the others were definitely South American flavours!

The old docks, which are rather similar to a miniature version of those in the east end of London, have been nicely restored, and we had an excellent coffee and pastry for lunch in one of the modern waterside cafes. There are a few historic ships in the docks as well as the yacht club, with some nice yachts there.

They are still building alongside the water, and when finished, it will be a stylish area approached by a Calatrava style foot bridge.

We were only given a day to look around Buenos Aires, and a month probably would not have been long enough! We walked until we dropped, although our walking boots did get a very nice brush up very inexpensively by a man on a street corner.

Besides our sightseeing we managed to buy a leather Argentinean style hat for Will which is very comfortable, and will add to the growing collection of hats from around the world.

We also bought too much wine which had to be carried back to the ship in two large carrier bags; about a mile. They were carried because we had run out of taxi money, buying the wine! Never mind, It was an excellent pre dinner tipple for the remainder of our trip. We cast off our lines again in the evening, to make our way down the Rio de La Plata to Montevideo. It is certain we passed the resting place of the Graf Spey during the night, but there is little to see there nowadays, except a wreck buoy.

The Montevideans were very good to the Allies during the second world war, delaying the Graf Spey so long in port, that in the end there was no escape, and she could either be surrendered or scuttled. She was scuttled with no loss of life. We met a charming man with excellent English, selling gold jewellery and large purple amethysts from a stall in a leafy city square. He was recommending the work of a local jewellery work shop, run by a Jewish family, that made and restored the rings for the Roman Catholic Bishops in South America. Nothing but the best for the Catholic church; very egalitarian nowadays.

We had lunch in the timber lined ‘Café Brasilero’, where the waitresses and waiters had the same uniform and were very efficient with excellent food.

Other than that Montevideo is a dump! On New Year’s Eve rather a dangerous dump, since in the afternoon, the inhabitants have the endearing habit of throwing water from the balconies and out of the windows of high rise apartments onto the pedestrians below, whilst the police look on and smile. Admittedly it dampened down the dust emanating from the crumbling nineteenth and twentieth century facades, but we started to understand the warning, given by our jewellery salesman, that he was going to pack up his stall in the park early, otherwise, after lunch, he would apparently have had his table cleared for him , for no payment.

Graffiti starts to show its ugly head again, almost everywhere here and the Rambla Gran Bretana, which should be a beautiful seaside walk, turns into a crumbling and uneven pavement with an old falling down gun emplacement and a propped up canon pointing inland. It’s a pity its not in working order, it might brighten the place up if it was fired.

Montevideo is more like a South American Larache, and Larache is the slum of Morocco. Montevideo has no saving grace, such as Larache’s Garden of the Hesperides and it is dangerous (two of our friends were robbed at knife point). If you are thinking of going to Montevideo for any reason, don’t. It is not worth the taxi fare from one side of the town to the other, let alone an airfare or ship’s ticket. They revere their cowboy (gaucho) and the dusty trail. Enough said.

A thousand miles further north lies Rio de Janeiro. The voyage there, taking two days, was uneventful, except for the fabulous meals on board and surprisingly the best pheasant dish ever tasted by Will, which includes a pheasant dish in a very famous Scottish restaurant. It is not surprising that few people write of voyages nowadays. On the Amsterdam there was little to see outside the boat except white horses and sky with a number of rain clouds. On Atlantia we could tell you of the roller coaster, nail biting, white knuckle trips up and down the huge sea swells, whilst, communing with dolphins, whales, sea birds and floating jelly fish, and avoiding the crashing waves coming over the deck whilst we all cling to each other, including the boat, to support our lives. It isn’t really like that on Atlantia either, but it is very much more possible and believable on such a small boat as ours! More of our own sea time later. We reached Rio de Janeiro early in the morning and it is indeed a sight to behold. Denuded volcanoes, leaving only their worn granite cores, poke out of other mountains around, whilst the tall buildings and long beaches of the city support them like piles of sand piled up to support wooden posts or individual road side rocks.

There were three cruise ships coming alongside our dock almost at the same time. It must be admitted their seamanship was excellent, and all seemed to manage into their small spaces very smoothly. Although it is called The River of January, there isn’t really a river, although it was first landed on in January 1502 (mid summer) by Portuguese explorers.

Brazil of course is Portuguese, since the Pope, in about 1494, decreed that all lands discovered in the Southern New World west of about 50 degrees west, would be Spanish, and to the east (Africa etc.) would be Portuguese. He didn’t know it at the time but Brazil fell into the eastern category, thus depriving the Spanish of the rest of South America. Brazil occupies about half of the land mass of South America and is very important for its gems and its forests as well as silver and gold and other metals. It is also self sufficient in oil and has a very rich farmland, especially in the south. It has been a republic since 1889 and seems to have suffered little of the turmoil that other countries in South America have been through. (The ex Spanish ones). Rio de Janeiro reflects its country. To us, on a very short visit, it reflected industry and fun, although the graffiti artists had been up here as well adorning some of the less lovely buildings and not beautifying them at all. Generally though, Rio de Janeiro was, to us, an exciting place. We walked the length of Ipanema beach. You will remember the bosanova song “the girl from Ipanema”. Well, she is about 80 now, but is still sort after at dinners etc. Her daughter is not so well endowed apparently, but no doubt her great grand daughter will have songs written about her. Ipanema beach was saturated with bodies and bikinis, both top and bottom were all there when you could see them.

Copacabana beach has a bad reputation for robbery, but we had no problem here. We sat at a beach café for lunch and enjoyed the sights of people swimming, playing volleyball (with their feet), flying kites and generally having fun. We swam in the water but found it a little chilly.

The famous Carnival of Rio only really takes place down one boulevard as far as we can tell, although we were there at the wrong time of year for the actual event, which is around now. The boulevard itself is unimpressive with unadorned concrete grandstands on one side. They say the magnificent costumes make up for the colour and we could certainly believe it. They need to.

Our very few days in Rio were punctuated by three days going to the Iguazu falls. Despite the number of people joining us for the view, they were spectacular. One third of the falls are in Brazil and the other two thirds are in Argentina, on the other side of the river The grandeur of the scenery almost obliterated the thousands of tourists viewing these wonderful waterfalls .They are spread over the length of about a mile and a half, and although only falling about 200 feet, they carry the largest volume of water, over vertical falls, in the world. The longest continuous sheet of water and definitely a larger drop is on the Victoria falls in Southern Africa, although it does not carry as much water. Niagra falls regrettably comes a very poor third, although was still spectacular thirty years ago when Will was there.

We also saw a type of cormorant local to the area, the Anhinga.

There were toucans flying, and a well camouflaged heron standing only yards from the tourist trail. There were colourful blue browed jays in the trees.

We also saw a cayman alligator sunning itself on a rock just below the tourist walkway. It was no doubt hoping a tourist would fall in.

We stayed in a colonial style hotel on the Brazilian side of the falls, which are between Argentina, and Brazil with Paraguay just down the river.

The food was excellent, if expensive, and we were assured that all the rich and famous had stayed there, including Princess Diana. The hotel was being refurbished at the time we were there, but it was still delightful to sit on the terrace with the local rum drink, full of limes, and to see across the lawns and trees to the thundering water, and to watch the toucans jumping from branch to branch.

We took a boat ride! Not any old boat ride, but one that went right up to, and underneath the Brazilian Falls. We were warned we would get wet, and had changed into our swimming costumes for the occasion, together with the necessary, but fortunately not required, life jackets.

The boat was a twenty five foot rib with a very large outboard motor on the stern, and carried about 25 people.

Fortunately our helmsman/ skipper was extremely able and steered us between various cataracts to reach the bottom of the major falls, and indeed to poke our bow, (where Will was), under one of the areas of the falls themselves. It was lucky we had a waterproof and shockproof camera with us. It still works.

As if all that excitement wasn’t enough we went to a bird park before catching our plane back to Rio de Janeiro. The Red Ibis are spectacular.

The park was started by an Englishman in 1994 and covers about 17 hectares of natural second growth jungle.

Most of the aviaries which house the birds are about 8 metres high and the birds fly freely about within them, including Macaws.

The essence of the aviaries is to house rare or suffering birds which are in need of care and rejuvenation before being set free to the wild if possible, such as the Golden Conures.

There are over 500 species of birds here. About a third are threatened species. There are also anaconda snakes, although they weren’t in an aviary we could walk into!

We flew the 800 miles back to Rio de Janeiro. We had left the cruise ship before our trip to Iguazu and so we stayed at hotels for our last two nights. We stayed one night at a hotel provided by Holland America (who own the M.V. Amsterdam) on the Sao Conrado beach.

The beach was lovely and we saw hang gliders and paragliders land on the sand, having come all the way from the top of the nearby mountain. The hotel was appalling being poorly furbished and on the edge of a Barrio (slum!). We moved.

For our last night we went to the sumptuously appointed hotel, the Sofitel Copacabana, and our balcony looked over Copacabana beach, spectacular, although the currents produced some interesting brown swirls in the water, and we saw a cadaver being air lifted ashore beneath a small police helicopter!

We had a view of Sugar Loaf mountain which we scaled to the top. Not so much scaled as went up in the cable car, which in itself was toe tingling. We made it though, as have millions of people before us since 1912, and when we reached the top of this pinnacle of rock, there were the candy floss sellers

. Admittedly they were unobtrusive and the coffee from the café was first class, but it was all Margaret could do to prize Will’s hands off the railings and into his pockets for the payment. The top is just the right height for vertigo, no wonder the vultures were wheeling around.

After such a wonderful trip the flights back to Cartagena were somewhat of a disappointment and perhaps more like our original expectations. The same airline, Avianca, but their oldest planes. The seats on two of the longer flights, to San Paulo and then to Bogata, where broken and uncomfortable and the organisation on ground, especially at Rio de Janeiro, was chaotic. They even had to have a small piece in their in flight magazine saying that the good traveller does not complain whilst on board. We didn’t, but if Will hadn’t caught a bug from the inedible food on one of the flights, and been laid up for a week on Atlantia following our return, then we would have sent a sharp letter to the Managing Director of the Airline. As it was, two days in bed was enough to calm down, especially since the airline is supposed to be replacing its decrepit MacDonald Douglases with European Airbuses (such as we had on the way down). Maybe the new planes will help the overworked ground staff as well. Thus the ups and downs of modern travel. Atlantia is starting to gleam. She has been in the yard here in Cartagena, for about a week and has now had the topsides repainted. She is presently covered in tape, paper and plastic, but her shining self will be revealed in our next letter. Hope you are well.

Love Atlantia.

Letter from Atlantia January 2009.

It was 0730 on Monday 22nd December 2008 when we rounded Cape Horn. The water was smooth with no more than ten knots of wind and the sea birds (albatrosses, skuas, giant petrels and smaller petrels) were skimming over the water and around the cliffs. Will always thought Cape Horn was the end of the world, but it is no further south than Glasgow and Edinburgh are north, and Glasgow is most certainly not the end of the world. (Not even nearly). Cape Horn is in fact an island off Tierra Del Fuego. It was named by two Dutch brothers after Hoorn in Holland. A town which offers wonderful Moules Meurniere in the old lighthouse, if we remember rightly from our time at the European Dragon Championships in nearby Medenblick in 1998. The sea was almost oily at Cape Horn and although just past the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere, the light was fairly dim with the slight mist being blown off the island.

The excitement on board the M.V. Amsterdam, 60,000 tonne cruise liner with 1300 passengers and 600 crew, was obvious. To be passing Cape Horn and not being an early intrepid explorer in a small square rigged tub, seemed almost too incredible. The average age of the passengers was probably about 70 and it is unlikely that any one of us would have been privileged to round Cape Horn unless for the wonders of the age old lust for adventure, translated, and paying, for this modern cruise ship. Will’s mind kept on straying to the fact that it was Cape Horn and it must be Monday. You could tell it was Monday because the mats in the lifts, connecting the cruise ship bowels to its highest deck bar said so. The slight feeling of hurry and unreality aside, the famous cape looks quite similar to many capes on the west coast of Scotland, but particularly to the west cape of Hirta in the St Kilda group, with its jagged rocks unworn away by glaciers. On second thoughts it does look a bit like the end of the world, or at least somewhere the Vikings would have been at home with.

We turned away from the famous but tranquil Cape, scene of so many stories and films of wild seas, and set our course for 500 miles south to Antarctica. Somebody on board said it was a shame not to see the Cape in all its primeval glory, with the 25 metre seas encountered by the same cruise ship the year before. We didn’t think so, thank you.

Our voyage to Antarctica had started at Valparaiso in Chile. We had flown from Lake Titicaca to Lima, where we had stayed for one forgettable night and had flown on to Santiago in Chile. The man who picked us up from the airport was charming. He had one of those printed notices that said ‘Mr & Mrs Rud’ on it. Not quite the name but we got the gist.! Will had always wanted to see his name on a card at the end of the customs queue, so it was almost gratifying! Our driver said that Santiago was the safest place in South America, but he then locked the boot of the car and made sure the inside doors were secure and proceeded to tell us not to go out that evening since two famous football teams were having a head to head and the streets would not be safe to be on after the match. Albeit that the stadium was three miles away! We didn’t go out and we didn’t get accosted!

The following day we were picked up in a swish car and with a guide all to ourselves we were taken to two Vinas (pronounced Binas).

One was a modern organic winery (vineyard to the cognoscenti)

and the other was an old established estancia with lovely wooden houses and barrels.

The owner of the vineyard also had a collection of vintage cars and a stable full of polo ponies. Some people are very well off in Chile and they also make very good wine!

We went to a museum after an excellent lunch. The museum, among other historical artefacts, had pictures of General O’Higgins, a Chilean of the early nineteenth century, who along with Lord Thomas Cochrane Earl of Dundonald, and General Manuel Rodriguez, overthrew the Spaniards and declared Chile independent in 1818. Lord Cochrane was the swash buckling Scottish Royal Naval Captain of the Napoleonic Wars whose exploits became the model for such fictional heroes as Midshipman Easy, Hornblower and latterly Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey. Since Will knows one of Lord Cochrane’s descendents, who lives in Scotland, it was certainly an interesting and educational visit, especially the portraits.

The same car took us the fifty miles to Valparaiso the following day through the rather foggy, smoggy valley that is occupied by Santiago. It was pretty however and reminded us of the rolling landscape of middle France with, surprisingly, poplar and willow trees all over the place. Which, comes from where, we ask ourselves, but so far have not received an answer! We passed through Valparaiso itself fairly quickly and are therefore unable to comment on the city. Suffice to say that although it is now the Seat of Government for Chile, that fact seems to have made little difference to the dowdy dock area and the slums on the hillsides overlooking the Centre itself.

Our acceptance onto the ship was smooth and the welcome on board the M.V Amsterdam was warming. Our trip from there to Tierra Del Fuego was mostly very calm, calling in at Puerto Montt, Punta Arenas and finally, in Argentina, Ushuaia.

We passed through Fjords that looked very Norwegian or even Scottish, and past glaciers whose faces have retreated in the last twenty years, indicating, as we all know, that the world is getting warmer.

We went to some excellent lectures on the ship about the Geology of the Southern Continents, and also some rather peculiar lectures on Darwin and the South American Geo political situation, by a rather decrepit, small, North American, whose views seemed to be far astray from those in Britain, and probably most of elsewhere! The food on the ship was absolutely outstanding and we also met some very interesting people, since we sat with at least two different people each night at dinner. Will has always wanted to meet somebody from “Orange County, California”! They didn’t have straw sticking out of their ears, eating fruit straight from the tree. David was a litigation Lawyer and Ann was a contribution collector for any cause from anywhere, for vast sums. They were charming and we had both Christmas Lunch and New Year’s Dinner together. On New Years Eve on our stern deck Veranda, we were also joined by new friends from the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Holland. A truly international bunch.

We followed the coast of Chile in our R.C.C. (Royal Cruising Club) book that had been given to us by all our friends at Rhu Marina before we left Scotland. Hopefully we may use it again going to Easter Island, after passing through the Panama Canal and sailing to the Galapagos. In the Chilean fjords we could not have been nearer to Scottish scenery if we had been back on the West Coast of Scotland. The only difference is that it is about 800 miles long instead of 200. It was great to be almost home again. Cold, wet and windy. But that was only for a short time. Most of the time it was sunny and calm and the days got longer and longer! It was wonderful to see the snow clad peaks of the Andes behind the much smaller hills adjacent to the islands and borders of the fjords

.

We never saw the magnificent Condor despite looking hard. We only heard about them from one of the shore excursions, who had seen them clustered around a dead sheep. We were quite glad we hadn’t seen them at that point. It just stressed that they are carrion eaters, even if they do have the biggest wingspan in the world. We did see the wandering albatross with a 12 foot wingspan and the giant petrel that looked as if it could eat us. They followed the ship for miles without a single wing beat. Oh that we could be so graceful. We must be careful though lest Icarus’ example comes to life!

In Ushuaia, in the Straits of Magellan, we took a small (50 foot) cruiser to have a look at the Southern Sea Lions

and the local Magellanic Cormorants and Royal Cormorants. (The titles of Cormorants and Shags seem to be interchangeable down here, very confusing at times).

We also saw flightless steamer ducks and an Ibis common to the Straits. We were impressed by a hardy number of sailing yachts near Ushuaia,

The sailors were well wrapped up in their oilies, with gloves and wellies obvious. We think our oilskins have fallen apart with the heat. No doubt we will have to get some more when we reach New Zealand.

What about the penguins you ask! The penguin is a flightless bird and only occurs in the southern continents. Its counterpart in the northern hemisphere, the Great Awk, was wiped out in the nineteenth century by sailors off the coast of Canada, looking for food. The smaller puffins of Scotland are in fact a relation of the penguin, although of course they can fly. We saw a whole colony of Megellanic penguins at Punta Arenas.

We took a taxi to the colony and our taxi driver came round the reserve with us. Not a word of English and our Spanish is definitely ‘poquito’ (a little) although expanding a bit., with the use of the dictionary and the phrase book. We didn’t need any language to communicate with the penguins which came ashore to nest in burrows, which is just like the puffins.

These species were a lot larger than puffins though, standing about 2 feet (650mm) tall. They ignored us, so no language difficulties. They were very sweet, sedately taking their catch to the young on shore and regurgitating it so the youngsters would be fed.

On the return to the city and just outside a huge, but slightly camouflaged open cast peat excavation, we saw two wild rheas. These are the flightless birds of Patagonia and it is not surprising they were used as food by the earlier settlers from Germany and Wales who came over in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The 500 miles of open sea between the Capo de Hoorn and the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica), was voyaged over a day and a night. Besides the albatrosses and giant petrels, we saw nothing except for a smooth grey sea with the odd white crest. As usual, away from headlands the sea became smoother. If we were ever brave enough to round Cape Horn in a wind, we would keep at least 50 miles south of the cape where the seas are a little smoother. Of course this is only the equivalent latitude of Perth (Scotland) in the northern hemisphere, although admittedly it doesn’t have the benefit of the gulf stream to help warm the sea around. We passed Drake’s passage safely, as did the great navigator who was the first European Captain and explorer to sail the whole way around the world (Magellan was killed in the Philippines fighting somebody else’s war). We arrived in Antarctica the next morning to see whales blowing and penguins resting on icebergs.

We stopped at Palmer Station, a United States base, to pick up about ten scientists, who were only too willing to come aboard and tell us about their experiences there. The nub of their research was: 1) The ozone hole is slowly closing since CFCs were banned in the late 20th Century. 2) The Norwegians and Japanese insist on fishing long line (which kills dolphins, sharks and albatrosses, as well as the fish they are supposed to catch) and also hoovering (literally) up the krill in the Antarctic Ocean. The krill are shrimp type animals which are the basic food for all the sea animals and fish in the world food chain. The antics of these countries, who also want to start hunting whales again, are definitely upsetting the balance of nature. We are not sure yet what other countries are doing about this. Pretending to be ostriches probably. 3) The only other scientific item the young scientists would admit to, was that although there is significant evidence of global warming, there is no evidence that this is being caused by mankind; although there may be a small acceleration caused by man’s activities. Don’t believe the rhetoric that seems to be expounded by some politicians. They may be spouting for their own survival, which indeed the whales do!

It was incredible to wake up on Christmas morning (no chimney for Santa Claus in our cabin!) to the sight of icebergs and penguins in a tranquil sea outside, between islands of granite and ice. We were lucky enough to have our cabin right next to the lower stern deck and were able to slip outside for a quick view of the scenery before rushing back through the storm doors to the warmth of our cabin.

We spent three days altogether in the Antarctic, shuttling around the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsular.

Elephant Island is part of the South Shetland Islands and is where most of Shackleton’s crew, 22 of them, spent 105 days waiting for him and a Chilean supply ship to rescue them, after their ship was wrecked in the ice, and Shackleton had sailed to South Georgia 800 miles away, in a small boat to summon help. An amazing story of the early 20th Century, and the temporary camp is not a place we would have liked to stay for four months!

We passed by Elephant Island on Christmas evening.

We also passed Deception Island which is an active volcano and has hot water within its sea flooded caldera. (Also cold water!)

We saw thousands and thousands of Adelie Penguins at the Trinity Peninsular where there is also an Argentine Base. It is amazing that some of the land was not covered in ice and snow, as we had thought, and was simply bare rock. Of course it was mid summer, and in the 22 hours of darkness in June it would be a different matter.

The furthest south we reached was 65 degrees 4.373 minutes south, about 1500 miles from the South Pole. (Not quite at the Antarctic Circle). There were plenty of icebergs however, some of them as big as a small town. These were mostly the result of ice shelves breaking up, although some came from glaciers falling into the sea.

Surprisingly enough, although we saw a number of minky whales and hump back whales, some orcas , hundreds of thousands of adelie penguins, and quite a number of gentoo penguins, we saw no fur seals or any sea lions of any kind in the Antarctic. The experts said that we were a little early for the breeding season but still couldn’t explain the complete lack of seals or sea lions. Strange since there were plenty of penguins to eat!! We saw a number of sheathbills; several landed on the deck to add to the festivities of Christmas day.

We left the Antarctic seas thoroughly happy that we had achieved two life time ambitions. Firstly to sail past Cape Horn and secondly to see penguins in the wild!

The seas back across Drake’s passage to the Falklands were relatively flat, and since the wind was on our quarter it was a good voyage. The Falkland Islanders seem to be in no doubt as to who owns the Falkland Islands. The British. Not the Argentineans who once had a presence there briefly in the 1830’s but who never colonised the islands. That was done by Scotsmen and Shetland Islanders who moved there in the 19th Century. The Argentineans seem to think that since the Spanish once claimed the Falkland Islands (they called them The Malvinas) then they should also claim them. The Falklands are nearly 300 miles from Argentina. It is like the Norwegians claiming the Orkney Islands since they once owned them, or Britain claiming Normandy and Calais since England once owned them! Stupid and backward, and both are a lot closer to the potential claimants than 300 miles! The Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in 1982. To the immense relief of the 200 islanders, the 10,000 sheep and the 3000 penguins, Britain sent a task force to sweep the Argentineans into the sea. Regrettably a number of lives were lost, on both sides, but the upshot of it was that Britain retains the islands in her ownership, although there is some woolly treaty with Argentina with regard to oil extraction which is in fact happening nearer Argentina.

The Falkland Islanders seem to have an English accent that could be pinpointed to, perhaps near Ilford in Essex. One girl who sounded very Theydon Bois, said she had never left the islands. This was slightly surprising since the islands could be mistaken for mainland in Shetland (G.B!), with virtually no trees and a bleak and wind swept, if very grand, landscape. No draft beer in the pubs though. An opening here for a mini brewery we think.

The museum in Stanley, (the Capital), was a delight, giving a flavour of many of the sailing ships that used to stop here for whaling, or before they braved Cape Horn, on their visits to Valparaiso (for guano) and San Francisco (for gold). The products seem rather appropriate to the towns present characters. It also gave a flavour of a battle in the first world war when a number of German Battleships were sunk by the British off the coast; and of the second world war when the Graf Spey was chased from here to Montevideo where she was later scuttled. There was of course a whole room dedicated to the ‘conflict’ in 1982 showing the terror inflicted by the Argentineans and the progress of the British combined forces as they regained the land for the inhabitants.

Also, appropriately, there is a room devoted to the island birdlife which has a magnificent stuffed king penguin as its centrepiece.

Some of the sheep were in the garden. There are also some delightful rooms made to look like they are straight from the 19th Century, with various elegant artefacts to show what life was like in the Falklands in those days. The wedding dresses looked like they would fit a modern child of 10. The wind has strange effects down here! It was a most enjoyable visit to these islands. It felt like being close to home again. (Except for the penguins which were covering some of the beaches as we departed).

We think that makes a good stopping point for this letter, since our visits to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and the fabulous, wonderful, spectacular, Iguazu Falls shouldn’t really be shared with the first part of our continental South American and Antarctic voyage of discovery. (Even if we did cheat a bit on a cruise ship!!) Hope you like the pics, shared this time. This one is of a wandering albatross:

Love Atlantia