Goodbye Ushuaia: Setting Sail!

As is the case with many travelers, our time in Ushuaia was just an appetizer before the “main course” of Antarctica! While we had spent two nights in an AirBnB already, our cruise with Quark Expeditions did include a night at the Albatros Hotel, which really could not be any closer to the port in Ushuaia. We were told the night before to leave all of our larger suitcases in the lobby overnight so that Quark staff could take it to the ship early in the morning, meaning that we just just had to worry about our day packs. 

Most of the day was free after breakfast at the hotel, so I found that to be a good time to exchange more dollars to pesos and send off some last minute “I’m going to Antarctica!!” messages to friends and family from a cafe with mediocre WiFi. We met again at the hotel around 3pm in the afternoon, walking all of 50 steps to the bus near the pier which took us to an area that is restricted only to cruise passengers, at the foot of our ship: the Ocean Adventurer! Instantly I was struck by its relatively small size (just 128 passengers), and how it was dwarfed by other expedition ships (hardly behemoths in their own right). Onboard the atmosphere was positively giddy, and I could not tell if the expedition staff or the other passengers were more excited for this adventure!

We set sail just a few hours after boarding, with the winds again whipping us and the other travelers that went out on the top deck as we set off. Just as we set sail an incredible double rainbow appeared, lasting for the duration of our passage of the Beagle Channel, brilliantly being reflected in the water in a way that I have never seen a rainbow be mirrored before. Already the trip had barely started, and I could not have been any more excited!