Santiago to Punta Arenas and to sea

Today started with a light breakfast at 0430 before leaving the Mandarin Oriental in Santiago and heading for the airport. The Hurtigruten part of this trip started last night with the hotel room included in the Hurtigruten package. The short ride to the airport was via coach.

The 3 1/2 hour flight to Punta Arenas went without a hitch and we were lucky with the weather so we had amazing views of the Andes mountains 🏔️🏔️🏔️🏔️🏔️ on the way.

At Punta Arenas we were again picked up by coach 🚌 and given a 2 hour trip around the city. To be honest there's not much to see here, but we had to wait for the ship to be made ready - it only arrived from the previous 3 week expedition this morning at around 6am!

At 4pm we boarded MS Fram 🚢 and found our cabin. After a welcome-on-board drink 🍾🥂🥂 in the restaurant we unpacked and settled in before an obligatory safety meeting on the main observation deck, where we are told the emergency drills and how to get into the survival gear, which was amusingly demonstrated by crew members 🧑‍🚒.

This was immediately followed by dinner 🥗🍲at 6:30, During which we noticed that we were moving away from land. A busy, and long day.

Next stop the Falkland Islands! 🚢

I dag kl 04:30 møtte vi resten av expedisjonsgruppen, og vi ble fraktet i busser til flyplassen. En fantastisk flytur over Andesfjellene, der kapteinen selv opplyser at vi er heldige med været.

Punta Arenas er byen på sydspissen av Chile. Det sørligste punktet før avgang mot Antarktis, der Hurtigruteskipet Fram venter. Vi inntar båten, sjekker inn på vår utrolige lugar, nyter en velkomstdrink og møter utrolig mange hyggelige reiseglade medpassasjerer. Kl 19 er det avgang, middagen ligger rolig i magen, og bølgene vi føler skyldes nok mest vin og minst vind😂🥂🚋🚢, og slik får vi vel håpe det fortsetter😉. Tenk, min kjære mann skal tilbake til Falklandsøyene der han var stasjonert for 37 år siden. Dit kommer vi først på søndag, så i morgen er det sjølivet vi nyter. God natt fra oss, god morgen Norge. 😴😀