Embarking the Caledonian Star in Punta Arenas

The skies are clear and bright so we all got excellent photographs of the lake and mountains. The Chileans don't seem to brew coffee. This morning Nescafe instant and canned fruit salad were the order of the day for breakfast. By 9AM we were in the bus.

Our first stop was at a water fall, Salto Chico, (little falls). Jack Morrison fell and banged up his face negotiating the wooden pathway. Carol Hazelwood is suffering "tourista". The infirmary is at the back of the bus.

A few miles back toward the park entrance, the bus stopped again and we all hiked a couple of miles (1.5 hours) up to the Salta Grande, a large waterfall where a glacier feeds the lake where our hotel was located. The famed winds caught us at the top. They howled! We estimate 40-45 mph. It was difficult standing, let alone hiking against the wind. Rosie and I turned back but found the group reached the bus before we did by simply continuing the circular trail. A box lunch awaited us back on the bus.

On the way back we stopped for several condor, two red gartered (yellow billed) coot and lots of guanaco. Rosemarie took a picture of a guanaco family. The bus ride down from Torres del Paine to Puerto Natales was very hot in the sun. Despite our southern latitude, the temperatures on the bus reached above 90 degrees F.

After a return flight aboard the chartered twin Otter from Punta Natales to Punta Arenas (we flew at 9000 ft. to clear the clouds) and a short bus ride from the airport to the docks, we found ourselves aboard the Caledonian Star by 1930. There was a safety lecture in the lounge and we cast off promptly at 2000 for the transit down the Straits of Magellan to the west of Isla Dawson making 16.5 kts. We are in cabin 204 on the main deck, port side. We've got twin beds, night table between. A pair of closets and a nice desk with chair complete the furnishings. There are two portholes. We're next to the purser's office.

Tom Ritchie, who authored the Antarctica Primer, is aboard as expedition leader. Pete Puleston, Dennis' son, is also aboard. (We cruised Baja with Dennis Puleston, who did wonderful bird illustrations of the voyage.) One of his illustrations adorns the menu aboard Caledonian Star. Paul met the captain Leif Skog, with whom we'd previously cruised aboard Polaris to Baja after the Ensenada storm. He remembered Lady Bird Johnson, who was our traveling companion on that trip. And, of course, he remembered the storm which blew out Polaris' front dining room windows and those of the bridge, high above the waterline. We remember the crew buying a small pleasure-boat radar in San Diego to temporarily replace the ship's radar which had been shorted out by the seas that swamped the bridge.

Steve Maclean claims that Capt. Skog is credited with not only saving the Polaris, but saving the company, Special Expeditions, as well. Polaris had been docked in Ensenada, Mexico when the storm hit and snapped a number of large hawsers holding her to the concrete quay when Capt. Leif Skog took her to sea to ride it out. She'd almost certainly have sunk, or been severely damaged, had she tried to remain in harbor.

Late in December 1999 I got e-mail from Kurt Wolfsberg who, with his wife, had been aboard Polaris during the Typhoon which hit Ensenada. Their account of that adventure explains the state of Polaris when we boarded her for the next trip.

Kurt writes from Los Alamos:

Hi Birman's,

My Web page on Lindblad's Columbia River trip was just highlighted on the Lindblad Web page.
I went looking at the other highlighted pages and enjoyed your Antarctica
trip - virtually. We'd like to do that, but I do get sea sick.

Anyway, you mentioned that storm off Ensanada on the Polaris. Yes, we were
on that also. Memorable sea sickness! Click here for their fascinating log

Our next trip is this winter with Lindblad again to Costa Rica and Panama.
Small world?

Kurt (Wolfsberg)

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