From now on 4 days by ship

Days 1
On March 11, 2004, our long-awaited dream trip began: with the "Stella Australis", a smaller ship through the fjords from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia. Now you're probably thinking, what does a long-awaited dream trip mean, you've been doing it for three weeks already.
True, but this last part with the ship around the south of Chile and Argentina is something Jutta has wanted to do for a long time. The trip is short but expensive and we have been saving a few euros for it every month for a few years. And now the time had come. The ship has a capacity of 210 passengers, each cabin has a large window for a view to the outside. But there were only about 100 guests on board.
We start with the safety briefing. The life jacket is triple-fastened and must always be worn over all layers of clothing. It can be quite tight with 5 layers of clothing. So we quickly swapped the one in the cabin for a larger one.
On the first evening there is only a short introduction to the schedule of the days on board and dinner. You choose between various main courses and our friendly waiter Manuel takes care of everything and provides us with drinks during the meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner. You get a fixed place in the dining room. We sit at the German table with 4 nice people from Meißen and Traunstein.
Between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. there is a lounge serving coffee and sweet pastries. The bar opens at 11 a.m. and until midnight you can get wine, beer, sparkling wine, cocktails and of course non-alcoholic drinks. All of this is included in the price of the trip. Americans in particular meet up after the excursions and before dinner and enjoy the cocktails at the bar. But they don't go back after dinner. That's more the time for Europeans.
day 2
This isn't a holiday here 😀 8:00 a.m. breakfast, 9:00 a.m. meeting to be distributed to the boats that will take us on our first excursion on land: Ainsworth Bay. The sea is pretty rough, we have to hold on tight in the boat. 12 people can travel in a dinghy at a time and the captains at the helm drive around the bends quite quickly. We join the walk through the bay with lots of explanations about how the landscape is shaped by glaciers, wind and water, plants, animals, etc. An educational excursion. Our guide is willing and able to explain everything to us. We are lucky and there are only 4 people in the group. A nice start to the trip.
In the afternoon we go to the Tucker Islands. Small groups of penguins live there. We approach carefully in the boats. Of course, no one gets out to approach the animals directly. We observe them and want to disturb them as little as possible. The cute penguins are great, of course. But we are even luckier. A Cara Cara comes along. A small bird of prey, but a great showman. It first pecks at an old carcass and then plays with a piece of wood or something similar. It throws itself theatrically to the side, wrestles with the thing and puts on a show as if it wanted to offer us something 😀 And that's not all, on the way back to the ship we see two sea lions. Very close. Wonderful ☺️ what a first day 🥰
Then a Pisco Sour and a Gimlet in the bar 🍸