DAY 32 Feb 13 - Daylight passing Romanche, Alemania, Francia & Italia glaciers - Ushuaia, Argentina.

The city of Ushuaia was originally named by early British missionaries using the native Yámana name for the area.
It is the southern most city of Argentina at the tip of the continent and our first Argentinean port of call on this Grand Voyage as we now leave Chile behind. It claims to be the world’s southern most city but the Chilean town of Puerto Williams on the southern side of the Beagle Channel is perhaps a legitimate challenger! However Ushuaians claim that theirs is a true “city”.
During the first half of the 20th century, the city centred around a prison built by the Argentine government to increase the Argentine population here and to ensure Argentine sovereignty over Tierra del Fuego.
The prison was intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals, following the example of the British in Tasmania and the French in Devil's Island. The prison population thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world.
Today Ushuaia has a fully functional hospital, an international airport, primary and secondary schools, as well as institutions of higher learning. Its 65,000 residents enjoy an organized public transportation system and a functioning municipality and its industrial sector, led by the Renacer Grundig electronics plant, is among the largest in Patagonia. It is the fastest growing city in Argentina partly because if economic opportunity and partly because of its status as a duty-free port.
Ushuaia also serves as the provincial capital of Tierra del Fuego and of course lies on the Beagle Channel.
The Beagle Channel is one of the most picturesque water ways in the whole areas with an abundance of fascinating glaciers along its route as well as inlets and bays. It is the passage taken by ships heading down to the Antarctica. It is 150 miles long and three miles wide.
This Channel, separates Puerto Williams, Chile from Ushuaia, Argentina..
As mentioned the later is the capital of Tierra del Fuego whose eastern portion is part of the border between Chile and Argentina but the western part is completely within Chile.
The channel was named after the ship, HMS Beagle, during its first hydrographic survey of the coasts of the southern part of South America which lasted from 1826 to 1830.
The three islands at the channel’s eastern end, Picton, Nueva, and Lennox islands, were the subject of a very long territorial dispute between Chile and Argentina that began in the 1840s and which almost led to war between the two countries in 1978. The dispute officially ended on May 2, 1985, when a treaty awarding the three islands to Chile went into effect between the two countries.
This morning's nicely paced slow moving cruise along this wonder-fully pictur-esque waterway was slightly, and I mean only slightly, disappointing because of the mist and low clouds surrounding the mountains and their associated glaciers. It was impossible to fully view the unique beauty of the occasion but as we penetrated further up the Beagle we really could appreciate the wonders of this fantastically wild and desolate wilderness.
I had slept right through the night, a full 10 hours sleep, so my batteries were now completely recharged. Maria said that the ship 'rattled' a good bit during the night and disturbed her nights sleep. I must say that as usual I was just oblivious to all this.
We alter-nated between our snug state room and the slightly chilly balcony as the ship journeyed towards Ushuaia taking in the rugged mountain sights with their snow capped peaks that were now fortunately occasionally completely visible to us.
Shortly after 8.30 Frank Buckingham was there commentating directly into our stateroom on the cabin's TV Channel 43. He gave his usual interesting run-down of what we were seeing and what exceptional scenery to expect accompanied of course with 'live' pictures from the bow camera of the Prinsendam.
One point he did emphasis was that the weather here could change rapidly and by the time we reached the southern most city in the world, in a few hours time, the visibility could have improved immeasurably and we could even be in bright sunshine.
Maria was soon alive to the world and took over camera duty. What wonders digital cameras are? We can now literally take hundreds of pics to just capture those precious two or three that are to be kept for ever as mementos of the occasion. Of course Maria always thinks the treasured ones were taken by her and rubbishes my efforts to capture that special moment!! But as we men know, wives are always right....right?
Our cabin is situated on the port side of the ship and thankfully all the major points of interest today are on this side of the Channel. The first glacier of the morning we passed in the Beagle Channel was the smallish Espana Glacier. It was something to wet our appetite for some spectacular sights to come.
Such a moment truly came when we soon arrived at the Romanche Glacier. This was breath-taking splendour. The Glacier had receded over the years and no longer came right down to the tideway. Instead there was now a mammoth and turbulent waterfall cascading, or should I say crashing, down from the edge of the Glacier to the Beagle Channel. What a sight of raw nature in action.
The Alamania and Frenchia Glaciers quickly followed on from the awesome Romanche. These were much smaller in appearance but of course are part of the overall same massive ice sheet that dominates these mountains. They were both receding glaciers.
Although over the past few years they had receded a considerable distance back from the water's edge they still offered spectacular views of the contours left on the mountainside by the eroding ice sheet.
We were informed that at the Francia one a huge amphi-theatre type structure had been formed into a huge lake high up on the mountainside.
The Italia was another amazing glacier we soon approached. It is a fantastic sight with the glacier still 'atta-ched' to the tideway. The quite unique crystal blue colour of the glacial ice-pack was outstanding as it stretched all the way up the side of the mountain within the carved-our crevice it had created for itself.
We just hope that our photos can do justice to these really special views observed from our balcony. This can only be described as scenic cruising at its best, even without the sun shining to brighten up the landscape.
The Hollandia Glacier was the final part of the ice-sheet visible to us as glaciers. It too offered wonderful views of how nature could dress up the bleak mountainside turning it into something of pristine beauty.
All these sights are in Chilean territory as we still hadn't reached the border area between Chile and Argentina marked by our next point of disembarkation, Ushuaia.
However, very soon we could see this southern most city in the distance sheltered by the touring massive Darwin mountain range behind it.
In order to reach Ushuaia we needed to travel well on past the city on the far side of this wide stretch of water. Then we eventually turned 180 degrees in order to take the navigable channel back on ourselves, but now on the other side of the Channel, to this our first Argentinean port of call.
My goodness it was now cold on the balcony. Frank, in his earlier commentary, had warned us that the cold would chill us to the bone as we approached Ushuia but it should feel a good bit warmer once we were in town.
The Beagle cruising this morning has been, I'm sure, an unrepeatable experience and certainly another massive highlight of this wonderful Grand Voyage. Just think we are still not yet halfway through this 'trip of a life time' and have already enjoyed so many highs.
Like in Punta Arenas yester-day, we have made no plans for our visit to Ushuaia.
Many people like to take coach tours to see places of interest and/or the penguin colonies. We, however, will instead explore this pretty little town and generally play our day by ear, as they say.
The ship doesn’t set sail until 8.00 this evening so we have plenty of time to do what ever comes along.
However, it is another formal night and we have been asked to join Hotel Manager Françoise Birarda’s table for dinner so Maria will need time to suitably attire herself. It is also the night of the “Sweetheart Ball”. Presumably this is a substitute for Valentines Day, which is tomorrow, the day we go round the infamous Cape Horn when dancing may be inhibited slightly by the vagaries of the local weather there and when ginger tablets may be the order of the day for poor Maria.
Once docked we were advised that the temper-ature was 48 degrees (9C) in town which was likely to be the top figure for the day and significantly warmer than on our balcony where the winds from the Antartic can clearly be felt. By local standars this was quite a good day, temperature wise.
After venturing up to the Lido for some lunch we headed back to the cabin to put on some layers of clothes for our afternoon trip into town. The setting for this, the southern most city on earth, is spectacular indeed. We can now really appreciate the mountains sourounding the northern part of this island municipality.
The walk from the ship to town was simply done and in no time at all we were exploring this small town at the end of the world.
We headed to the main museum, which is privately maintained, and for a fee of the equivalent of $10 each we had a very interesting hour or so examining the history of this part of Patagonia.
There were plenty of old photos and relics from the early days after the region was first ‘discovered’ by Europeans. It also contained interesting histories of ships lost at sea in these parts.
By chance Gerry and Gary appeared from a nearby restaurant where they had dined upon delicious crab and Argentinean wine. They joined us in the museum.
We next moved a few blocks to the east then three blocks to the north in search of the original prison that was the start of populating Ushuaia one hundred and twenty years or so ago . As well as this being a prison museum, a naval museum was attached to it and the $14 equivalent entry fee covered both.
The prison was very well preserved and maintained and we enjoyed going back in time and seeing how these poor prisoners must have lived all these years ago. There was no breaking out of this prison and running away as there was nowhere to go. Not only were the elements against you but the terrain too.
The Naval Museum was full of information about the numerous ship wrecks of the area as well as models of all the main exploration ships that had come from Europe. It was apparent that those explorers and traders that transited from the Atlantic to the Pacific were very brave if not a little fool hardy at times.
Although it was indeed a little warmer in town (48F or 9C) and it was away from the biting cold wind we had experi-enced on our balcony and at the dock, it did start to rain and this made things a little miserable as we were exploring on foot. It was therefore time to head back to the docks and the Prinsendam.
Several other ships were in port. I think that two of them, a good bit smaller than our ship, took passengers down to the Antarctic Continent and back. One other ship in port today seemed to be a supply ship of some description unloading its cargo.
In the course of our wanderings we were pleased to see many of our crew talking the opportunity to go ashore. We saw both Maureen and husband shopping in the high street and met Deden as we returned to the ship.
The bad news today, and the reason I’m in the dog house, is that the collection of marvelous photos Maria and I took of the various glacier we passed this morning, have been deleted. Yes I accidentally forgot to save them to my library and then wiped these once in a lifetime pictures off the camera’s memory card.
Hopefully not all is lost and I may be able to ‘copy’ similar pictures taken by Gary on his smart little Casio camera. Next cabin neighbours, John and Barbara also took plenty of shots of these spectacular scenes and maybe I can also ‘borrow’ some of their pictures to go with my narrative. Mary Ellen has also offerd her collection of photos taken today.