Cruise Day 1

It is clear that the demographic of the travelling public is changing. Of the 130 people on this cruise there are threecouples under the age of 40. Of these, one is the doctor and her husband, interestingly they don´t tell the passengers that they have a doctor on the cruise as this leads to mass work for the Doc from all of the whinging americans (or so our friendly team member tells us).

After a pleasant night on the boat we awoke to day one of the cruise. Day comprises of two outings. The first is to a beech forest at the base of the Glacier Marinelli. I have never seen a Glacier close up, and this did not change today. The Glacier is retreating at an alarming rate of 1 METRE per DAY! So there area we were in, was completely covered by the Glacier 20 years ago. Now it is a blip in the distance. The mountain range it is from is called the Darwin Cordillera and they are seriously impressive and sporn about 15 of the Glaciers in the region. More on those later.

After the beech forest we motored to the next field trip for the afternoon which was to Tucker Island. It is a tiny little island that is home to a substantial contingent of Magellanic Penguins. We cruised right into the bay on the zodiacs but did not disembark as it is a protected area. There must have been 600 penguins on the beach and as we floated in to them they did not even move a muscle. It was amazing to see. As we sat there in amongst them, there was plenty more swimming into the beach around us bringing food for the kiddies.


The amazing thing about tucker island is that 15 years ago, it didn´t exist. The other thing is that it is the only conglometae island in the whole area. Let me explain. remember I said the glaciers were retreating... the thing about ice is that it is heavy, bloody heavy. It compresses everything else below it and becomes the dominant force.

Well, now that the ice is retreating, all of that ground that was squashed under the ice is now rising up. Its a type of static compensation. the pressure must remain in balance see. So because glaciers contain a lot of rubble from breaking down the mountains and rocks while making valleys, this ends up at the bottom of the glacier. So when it melts, this compressed rock is forced up by the magmatic chamber pressure underneath it and Voila, a new island, that looks a lot like dçsome of the bodgey cement jobs I have done in the past, full of all the rocks and sediment from the glaciers.

It really is amazing stuff.

Tonight is a nice dinner. we are on a table with 4 Scots, one of whom sounds like Sean Connory and another who looks a like like simon groom (for those of you that know him). Tomorrow is when we get to the good stuff with a close in look at one of the advancing glaciers in the range. Also s´posed to be a bit dodgey in the weather stakes. It is patagonia, so i´d be disappointed if we didn´t get at least a few really bad weather days.

toodles