Breadcrumbs

Tidewater Glacier
The end of a glacier in Glacier Bay, Alaska

So close

 So close, yet so far away

Hurtigruten tried to tempt us again with special offers by sending us an e-mail. We had sailed with them before, on their Coastal Express. This time they succeeded. We were hooked. 

 We started booking on line and then moved to the phone, with a direct call to Hurtigruten. The initial arrangements were confirmed on the 3 August 2016. Further phone calls resulted in some changes. A big change was finding out that British Airways were starting a direct flight in the New Year, in time for our trip. The final confirmation was an email on 23 August 2016.

We're off to meet some penguins!

African Penguin at Boulders Beach, South Africa

Following our direct flight with BA to Santiago de Chile, the capital city of Chile, we are staying for 4 nights in the Hotel Cumbres Vitacur. Allowing for some wind down time, seeing the sights of this small part of South America. Getting ready for our flight to Punta Arenas to join MS Midnatsol for a David Lindo Adventure from Cape Horn to the Penguins of Antarctic.

 

The details are;

Outbound and Precursor:-

LONDON HEATHROW (Terminal 5) 12 February 2017 22:00 to SANTIAGO DE CHILE 13 February 2017 09:40 Flight number: BA 0251

Hotel Cumbres Vitacura, Santiago de Chile,  13 February 2017 to 16 February 2017 3 Nights

Cruise:-

Hotel Cumbres Vitacura, Santiago de Chile, 16 February 2017 to 17 February 2017 1 Night

17 February 2017 Flight to Punta Arenas to join MS Midnatsol for a David Lindo Adventure from Cape Horn to the Penguins of Antarctic

On board MS Midnatsol for 17 February 2017 to 02 March 2017 with days 7 to 11 at Antarctic Peninsular

02 March 2017 Flight from Punta Arenas back to Santiago de Chile

Homebound

Sheraton Santiago Hotel & Convention Center, Santiago de Chile, 03 March 2017 to 04 March 2017 1 Night

SANTIAGO DE CHILE 04 March 2017 18:45 to LONDON HEATHROW 05 March 2017 12:05 Flight number: BA 0250

 

All three of us are going, and taking two cabins. With the special offers we managed to save several thousand pounds. A very pleasant temptation.

The itinerary includes an attempt at a landing at Cape Horn, weather dependant, and two crossings of Drake's Passage, there and back. Fingers crossed for a calm crossings, 2 days, both ways.

Cruising the Antarctic Peninsula, with several landings as the highlight of the trip.

We are not due to get as far south as the Antarctic Circle. That appears to be on trips earlier in the season. We didn't know it when we started thinking about going to Antarctica, but you have to choose what phase you want to see.

  • Pristine white snow at the very beginning of the tourist season, and huge icebergs
  • Very young penguin chicks
  • Crossing the Antarctic Circle and whales
  • Older penguin chicks and whales

There is more information on the web, but the above was our understanding at the time. For more info visit this site

The ship is ice-breaker class and the one thing you will always see is ice. We wanted to see the older penguins and have a better chance of seeing some whales. Accordingly, we decided not to go for a Polar Circle crossing to add to our northern hemisphere collection.

We are all very excited about this adventure

There is a long wait between August and February. Our deposit has been paid and on the 16 December 2016 we have to pay the remainder. Then in January, we have to get a Doctor's letter stating that we are fit to travel and ambulatory for the expedition.

Following Namibia, David and I might not fit that criteria. The final say is with the ship's doctor as you board the ship.

Having thought hard about the probability of all of us being fit, and discussing it with Hurtigruten we finally made the decision to cancel on the 13 December 2016. Our GP thinks we have made the right decision.

Disappointed as we are, we have made the right decision.

We're off to meet some penguins! Oh no you're not!

Our penguin photos will have to come from South Africa instead, and the ice at the top of the article, from Glacier Bay, Alaska.

African Penguins and chicks at Stony Point Nature Reserve

 

 Never mind, we will have to make another opportunity sometime in the future. We will check out 'how to plan a trip to Antarctica'. Of course the first hint will be don't get injured in the months leading up to your trip.

 

 

 

 

List of Articles

Counter

 

 

Free counters!

 

 

 

 The flag counter below is for my original travelogue, which is slowly being replaced by this one, but can still be found here.

free counters

 

 

News Flash

Change of host Sept 2023

 

Change of host Sept 2023

 

In the begining of August 2023 I transfered my ivanhurst.me.uk sites, including this one from 123-reg to IONOS. It was meant to be a simple task. However, that was to to be the case. The reason for the move was primarily the hugh increase in price that 123-reg was applying regarding email boxes. Previously, the upto 500 of the boxes were included in the various hosting packages I had. Now they were going to charge for each mailbox based on size, and as far as I could make out, this was going to cost me nearly £2,000. This was not acceptable, and I did not get satisfactory answers from support. So I turned of all the auto renews and stated to move sites and domains accross to IONOS.

Travel data problems

 

Travel data problems

This is where it starts to get a little technical.

The site is built on a content management system, CMS, using Joomla. Joomla is moving forward and version 3.10.?? is being discontinued. Future developments are for version 4.??

Similarly, PHP 7 is being replaced with PHP 8.

Part of the migration is relatively simple, I have already changed to a new template which works on the new platforms.

However, some of the helper applications, which work within Joomla are not yet ready.

Fabrik is one of those applications, if fact a significant 'Joomla Custom Website Application Builder'.

Refresh 2021

 

Site refresh Easter 2021

I decided to give the site a bit of a refresh over Easter 2021 and install a new template and some additional functions. One of the things I didn't like about the old site was the delay in text appearing which probably meant some people left before the content appeared. This has been corrected now.