Vavilov Postscript

Before our final diner, The Captain's Dinner, Alex the jack-of-all-trades put together a slide show of the guests' photo contributions. There were some excellent shots especially from the long lens people. I cleverly forgot to get my copy of the dvd so it will be a while before *that* slideshow. I do however, have about 2600 pics of my own - so book so time off now for my slide show.

Peggy my awesome cabinmate and I got invited to sit at the Captians Table for the last dinner for some reason. Peggy thinks it was because she was the oldest guest which would make me her pity date...unless my superior Iceberg detection skills holds some significance. The captain and crew have their own kitchen facilites and do not mingle with the guests so it was a big-ish deal (for a number of people who didn't sit at the Captain's Table.) Basically we got some complimentary wine, didn't have to stand in the salad buffet line and got to sit at the center table. My meal was quite good - tenderloin cooked to perfection. I must say that I was surprised by the food on the cruise overall. First there was a ton of it, quantity and variety, and given where we were, and the size of the ship I thought they did an a very good job.

I was up on deck at 5a our departure morning. It was dead still and there was a light sprinkling of snow on the mountains - the landscape looked like a giant etching. We docked at 7a, had one last breakfast and then everyone tried to get off the ship at once. Margaret (Vancouver) and I had a 3p flight so we took our time. We went and hung out at a coffee shop on the main drag in Ushuaia and yakked for a while. Turns out that as well as Margaret and I two other women on the cruise were staying at Lola House in B.A. when I was there but I didn't catch on to who they were. When we got to B.A. Charlie, the jazz loving taxi driver, was there to collect one of us but kindly took us both to our respective hotels. Margaret back to Lola and me to a central hotel. I thought that I would have some energy to walk about in the evening but crashed instead.