Day 16--Going Home, Part 2: Terra del Fuego

Back to the Americas!

All we did today was sail.  Sort of.  By midnight or so we were “behind” the southern tip of South America, so the sea smoothed out a lot.  We had a nice breakfast. We returned to our room and got the hint…it’s time to leave!  So, we packed 3 of the bags for check in, and headed to a presentation on “lichen”.  If you don’t know what that is, consider an organism combining algae and fungi into one new entity.  Lichen uses the algae to photosynthesize, and then grows like a fungus.  It was mostly interesting, but the soft rocking of the boat just seemed to beckon nap time.  And Theresa was (within 5 minutes) ready to either leave or nap, because…well, she doesn’t crave accrual of inapplicable knowledge.  😊

I guess our Butler wants us gone?  We can take a hint!

Ooh!!  Look!!  We found drinks! 
Well, empty glasses, I guess.

After the lecture, we stumbled into the bar (better than out of!) and found they were doing a presentation on drinks, so we grabbed a seat and got a few quick samples, before lunch.  We enjoyed lunch with a family we met in the hotel in Santiago so so long ago!  After lunch, we headed to a lecture on mammals in Antarctic and how they survive.  Short version, they’re fat.  Because ovals are sleek in the water and have a better surface area to volume ratio for retaining heat.  Lucky for us, we’re perfectly built! 

For our last trivia contest, we came in near the top.  The exact numbers aren’t important, because we didn’t win.  But we had fun.  We then headed to the last briefing, and they showed a little video on our trip, which they later gave us on a USB stick.  It mostly just made Bill want to go on another Antarctic voyage!

Symbolic of our cruise...setting....

After dinner, we finally breezed through the boutiques.  Jewelry, perfumes, and other things that didn’t interest us.  (Phew!)  We grabbed the computer and headed up to the observation deck to catch the sunset and fill out the comment cards and wrap up this trip.