As I write this, we are back in the Atlantic, at anchor in Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands. We did not tender ashore. You can see the town along the bay, surrounded by barren hills, which for me is quite sufficient.

Caronia   The ship is much smaller than I'm used to, but as I've said, so many people are adamantly pro Caronia that discussing large and small ships becomes parallel to discussing religion or politics. I like it fine, but it's a bit like walking around inside a toy. You can walk from front to back in no time, and side-to-side midships consists of a wide staircase in the middle, lifts on both sides, and corridors on both sides of that, with cabins. The Prominade Deck upstairs allows you to walk totally around the ship. Below that, on the Verandah Deck is the Garden Lounge in the front with windows all around, a few tiny shops, the theater, the Ballroom, and the Lido cafeteria (as on the QE2), with a good-sized open deck behind it. The casual restaurant is of course not called a cafeteria, they call it a buffet restaurant, since the word cafeteria in English now seems to imply something less than desirable. Below that, on the Upper Deck is the Franconia Restaurant, with only one seating (instead of two on the QE2), which makes Caronia addicts very happy. We go to the main restaurant only for dinner and eat in the Lido otherwise. The food in the Franconia is up to Cunard style, and the service is excellent. The staff addresses you by name, although that is not too surprising, considering the length of this cruise. There is a specialty restaurant, the Tivoli, with Italian food, which you have to book separately. There is no extra charge. We haven't tried it yet.

After dinner there is entertainment. They fly entertainers in at different ports to give two shows over several days, and they fly them home, usually to the UK.

Being on a ship this long is a marvelous experience. We are hardly though half of the seven weeks on the Caronia, and no one is looking for it to stop.

I've said before how amazed I am, not only at the international nature of the crew, but also at the number of people from eastern Europe, so closed off before. As always, the most frequent nationality among the working staff is Filipino. However, the three-man Caronia trio and the 6-7 man Caronia orchestra is Ukranian. The orchestra does fine with all sorts of music, but usually standard ballroom dancing, which is fine with me, waltzes, fox trots, rhumbas, sambas, and so on. I think it's charming when they play Glenn Miller and then call out "Pennsylvania seex fife tousent".

As usual, Bev draws a large fan club. You get to know lots of people over this period of time, both English-speaking and German. Most come up to her regularly and talk to her, or hold her hand or pat her shoulder. Bev had gotten a scrape on her nose, and last night a German lady ran to her cabin and brought back a salve. Everyone's very attentive. And then there's the nice things people say. I've gotten to know the Cruise Director, Martyn Moss, and the other day he called me a saint. Well, I don't know. They there's the German lady who reminded me that the highest order the German government gives is the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Merit Cross), and she told me in no uncertain terms that I should get it. Well, really.

The dress code is announced in advance. Formal nights (black tie) are about every 3-4 nights, when we've been in port, it's usually casual. In between are tie-and-jacket nights they delight in calling informal; I would call it semi-formal. Personally, this last one is my least favorite. I could go with alternating black-tie and casual and leave it at that. Valentine's day was formal. After dinner there was an "Officer's Red and White Ball". All the officers lined up (there are more female ones than you think; Margriet from the Netherlands is the Purser, and is currently hosting our table) and then went out and found partners to dance with. I thought I would escape that, but on one of the last dances, Jackie Hodgson, the Hotel Manager, asked me to dance, and then said nice things to me about Beverly and me during the whole dance.

We play Team Trivia at noon every day except port days. There's lots of participation, with maybe 20 teams of six. Our team, which includes those two francophone Canadian ladies we met in our Fort Lauderdale hotel lobby (the first one) the day we left, has tied to win in the last three sessions, yet lost the tiebreaker question each time. It's easy to lose that question, because it's always something like "How high is Angel Falls", and the closest answer wins. Team trivia in German is done maybe once a week in the evening. We've played the second and fourth times it was held. There are maybe 4-6 teams. It is no different to play it in German, since most questions as always cover general knowledge. The only language problem that comes up is when you have to name flowers or birds or the like, with words that it's hard to know. Nevertheless, the first time we played we were on the winning team, and they give prizes. Everyone got a double deck of Cunard playing cards. When we played the second time last night, our team (a different one) won again, and we won a Cunard mouse pad. I'm taking that pad to the noon (English) trivia tomorrow as a good-luck charm.

I had one very nice, but very inadvertant, complement paid to me the other day. This sort of thing happened twice back on the Deutschland, but the way it came up this time was most fun. I was chatting with a German lady about this and that, including that Bev and I had studied in Mainz, lived in New York and Tampa, blah, blah, blah. Then with the straightest of faces she asked me "Und wann sind Sie ausgewandert? (And when did you emigrate?)". I smiled broadly and said "Danke!", and explained that I was not German. It's fun when it happens that way.

Today being a port day, there are, thank goodness, no computer classes, so I can sit here and type away without three hourly interruptions during the day. But you have to keep in mind that on all the older ships, (Caronia, QE2), computer rooms were an afterthought. I found out that the Queen Mary 2, built to modern standards, will have two computer rooms. One will be a Computer Learning Centre, as here, but state-of-the art, with an instructor's console and a full-time employee as a teacher, not just a passenger-instructor taken on per trip. But, what's interesting, is that it will also have an Internet Cafe, so you can work without interruption by a class.

Chile   The nicest days have been, as always, days at sea. The Panama Canal and Panama Railroad were big plusses. Beyond that, the stops have been uneventful. There have been some grandiose side trips that we've passed on (we took one, see below). Mostly they have been far too ambitious for us, even without the wheelchair. In Ecuador there was a day flight to Quito, but of course people complained about the altitude problems. In Peru there was a trip of several days to Cusco and Macchu Picchu, and out of Buenos Aires there will be a trip of several days to Iguazu Falls. The longer trips meet the ship at the next port. We avoided all of those. Also, in some of these little ports, there are little trips planned in the style of what teachers call "busy work", taking people to some market or some such. For the most part, we've either just stayed on the ship or gotten off and walked around the dock area a bit. Generally speaking, between Panama and southern Chile, there wasn't really too much exciting on shore. The first stop in Chile was Arica, in the northern desert area. It's the dryest city on earth, averaging 1/6 of an inch of rain per year. But there was a nice local brass band on the dock as we sailed. When they got to play "New York, New York", I said to Bev we've got to dance to that (at the railing), and we got three other couples to dance, too. As we left Valparaíso, Chile, there was no music, but there was a beautiful view of the city and port in the late afternoon sun as we left.

Chilean Fjords   After Valparaíso, the scenery really picked up, to the point that I was totally amazed at how nice southern Chile (Patagonia) is, all the way to Cape Horn. The map of southern Chile now makes a lot more sense to me. All those islands and waterways often lead up to beautiful fjords. We had beautiful weather to boot. We often sailed up the inland waterway, we pulled up fjords to see snow-covered mountains, we stopped at Skua glacier and they sent a boat out to pick up some ice from the glacier.

It is often pointed out how the Gulf Stream keeps Europe warm, as opposed to Canada, right across, but not benefitting from the stream. In this area the Humboldt Current does the opposite. It sweeps up not warm, but cold water from Antarctica and keeps western South America chilly. I understand a lot of beaches in Chile are not easy usable, because the water's too cold. On the other hand, most people don't realize that the Humboldt Current's cold waters allow penguins to thrive all the way up the coast in Chile and even Peru.

Cape Horn   To understand most clearly the south end of the continent, point a thumb downward to represent the southern end of South America and look at your thumbnail. Imagine a broad V across the base of your thumbnail. Then imagine a straight line 1/3 up from the bottom. Then note the tip.

The broad V is the Strait of Magellan. We entered from the Pacific just past the jog of the V to Punta Arenas, Chile, at a wide point in the strait. I didn't hear anyone but me mentioning that this is where the hole in the ozone layer has its greatest effect.

Ships of course can use the Strait of Magellan as a shortcut to the Atlantic, but we backtracked down another channel back to the Pacific, and proceeded down to the next crossing. That straight line 1/3 up from the bottom of your thumbnail is the Beagle channel. (Darwin's influence is greatly felt here; the local snow-covered mountain range is the Darwin Mountains, and this channel is named after his ship, the Beagle). With the perfect weather we had, the Beagle Channel was the high point of this trip. There were snowcapped mountains on either side, and glaciers galore. I saw two of them, huge things sliding down toward the channel with waterfalls draining them below. People who stayed at the railing all day said there were maybe 4-6 glaciers in total.

Going down the Beagle Channel, the south side remains Chilean, but there is a marker where, on the north side, Argentina starts. Shortly after that is the Argentine city of Ushuaia. The only ship we passed was the Explorer II, a ship leaving Ushuaia that takes visitors to Antarctica.

Leaving the Beagle Channel we were in the Atlantic. We then turned south to go to Cape Horn itself. It turns out it's on an island, Cape Horn island, which curiously has dramatic cliffs on it's south end, the interesting end. We sailed clockwise totally around the island. Again, this being where oceans meet, it was curious that, as we went around the island, we went from the Atlantic to the Pacific and then back to the Atlantic. At Cape Horn not only was the weather nice, the seas were as smooth as glass. Even the Captain commented on it. “Going around the Horn” always had had a sombre connotation in the years that that was the only way to sail between the oceans. Because of the fear of the terrible weather in this area, people were glad to be able to use the Straits of Magellan. We were lucky to have had such calm seas.

Years ago, in the Netherlands, we drove into the town of Hoorn (pronounced in two syllables HOR-en), and I remember reading that Dutch sailors from Hoorn named the cape in SA after their town. So many people think of animal horns, or bugles or whatever, and that has nothing to do with Cape Horn. If it hadn't lost an O the meaning would have been clearer.

The Globe   We are not regularly shoppers when travelling. We have, though, on rare occasion, picked up a quality piece. The last time we bought something while travelling was on the Deutschland in 2000 when we stopped in Waterford, Ireland, and picked up four goblets.

I am reminded of one of Carol Burnett's most famous pieces, the satire on Gone With the Wind, where she, as Scarlett, comes down the stairs wearing the drapes, but with the pole still attached across the shoulders. Her line was "I saw it in the window and I just had to have it."

Well, I was walking past one of the shops on the ship one day, which was closed, and through the window on the table were two globes, a smaller one and a larger one, which I preferred. And: “I saw it in the window and I just had to have it.” They are made in China. I went back, bought it, they polished the brass and delivered it to the cabin, where it's on display. I look at the globe several times a day and give it a twirl.

What's special about another globe? It's a desktop globe, about ten inches across, in a horizontal brass stand on four legs. The base connectors have a working compass in it. However, the surface of the globe is all semi-precious stones and other special materials. All the oceans are a beautiful cobalt blue and made out of lapis lazuli. Every country is a different material: lapis, lapis siphnos, jade (white, green, spotted, Mongolian white, South African, black spotted, Phoenix, Mongolian spotted), jasper (red, green), amethyst, chrysolithos, tigerite, mother of pearl, abalone shell, aphrizite, belioculas onyx, conch pearl, banded agate, coral, purple quartz, meerschaum. I don't even know what a lot of those are, and I think it's fun that I was recently discussing meerschaum. The total effect is gorgeous.

I look at the globe every day and give it a twirl. A German lady we got to know came to give us some salve for a scrape on Bev's nose. When she spotted the globe, she asked if we always travel with our own globe. When I told her the story, she liked it so much that she went and purchased the smaller one. I made her a copy of the sheet telling what all the stones were, and she was pleased.

Antarctica   This trip has all been about going south. New York is at 74 degrees west of Greenwich, and most of Chile is in the low 70's, so there's not much difference in that direction. Going south, New York is at 41 degrees north, Tampa 28N, then passing the equator at 0 degrees, Valparaíso, Chile is at 33S (about as far south as Atlanta is north). Punta Arenas, Chile, at 53S, is only as far south as Berlin is north, nothing impressive. Cape Horn is 56 S (I had notes to that effect, but I had the cruise director check with the bridge, and the furthest south this ship sailed was 56 S 0.2'). But even that is only the equivalent south as Copenhagen is north.

The bottom line is, it's much easier for a traveller to go north than south. In Alaska, we've been to Fairbanks, almost at the Arctic Circle. In northern Norway is the furthest north we've ever been, at 71 N at North Cape, well beyond the Arctic circle at 66 2/3 N, and cruise ships regularly sail further north than that.

But going south is not easy. Africa only reaches into the low 30's S. New Zealand is further south than Australia, but even it only reaches into the mid-40's S. So Cape Horn in SA is about it, at 56 S.

So that's why we flew to Antarctica.

We didn't stop in Antarctica. We flew over Antarctica.

That was the only one of the grandiose tours we did, and it was only a day tour of about four hours in the air. Look at a good map to see how amazing Antarctica's location is. It is larger than Europe, about the size of North America. It is incredible how nearly round it is, how perfectly it's located over the south pole, and how most of it fits perfectly within the Antarctic Circle. Ships can go north to see the midnight sun above the Arctic Circle, because there you have a frozen sea. Ships can't easily go south to or beyond the Antarctic Circle, because there you have a frozen continent. Some cruise ships go close, but mostly you have to fly to Ushuaia and take one of those special ships like the Explorer II that we saw. Any trip that suggests taking heavy shoes and clothes and plenty of seasick pills is not the type we sign up for. Scientists go to Antarctica. The subcategory of travellers known as adventurers sail near Antarctica (and on safaris, jungle trips, and that sort of thing). That isn't us. So we flew.

I think the TCC counts Antarctica about nine times, depending on which area you manage to visit. Our view from a plane won't count, but neither can we count Cuba seen from the ship earlier, or Albania seen from land from the Greek island of Corfu years ago. That's OK with me.

I said Antarctica is round. That's not exactly true. It's comma-shaped, since the Antarctic peninsula points out toward SA. It's amazing that the same mountain range that starts in Alaska and goes through all the Americas including the Rockies and Andes, dips down under the Drake Passage to reappear in the Antarctic peninsula and further on in the continent. If that hadn't happened there would have been no natural way at all to sail past the Americas. There would have been a wall from pole to pole.

You can imagine that if you were flying from Bermuda to see North America on a day trip, you would barely pass the coast, see maybe Washington, DC, and then return. You would not attempt Kansas City. Similarly, our trip only reached the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.

Our trip to the End of the World actually started before we went to Cape Horn. We flew out of Punta Arenas, Chile. It began with a slide lecture on the ship with someone who has done scientific work in Antarctica. She said that as perfect as the weather was where we were, the weather was bad in Antarctica, all socked in, but there was a window of clear weather that we'd make for. It was a LAN Chile chartered Boeing 737, with hors d'oeuvres and champagne going and a choice of two hot meals returning. Leaving Punta Arenas, we could see the snowy tops of the mountains, then sipped champagne over the Drake Passage. On our first pass over the peninsula it was still socked in, but we were headed just beyond to the Weddell Sea, full of ice floes. Of all the islands there, we were going to Seymour Island. It was overcast, but you could see the ground clearly. She said we'd fly high and fast to get to Antarctica, then low and slow to see things. She said we went down to 2000 feet. We saw two scientific stations, one Argentinian and one Chilean. The one on Seymour very clearly had a landing strip and a number of metal buildings on it. There were very large pink areas around the station. She explained that penguins eat krill (like shrimp), and then, as she phrased it, they "poop pink", so even if we couldn't make out any individual penguins, there were thousands of them in the pink areas. As we went back across the peninsula, it cleared up and we could see the other station. Afterwards, she told us that our flight participated in two scientific experiments, at the one station the effect of airplane noise on penguins, and at the other the measurement of any residue from the plane exhaust on the enviornment.

Apparently anything south of 60 degrees south is considered Antarctica, including many islands. They provided us with a map of our route, and I was able to calculate that we had reached 64 S 30 at 56 W 30. We were just two degrees short of having crossed the Antarctic Circle, but weatherwise, it would have been useless to go any further. Therefore, going from Punta Arenas, past Cape Horn, to Seymour Island is the equivalent in the south of going from Berlin to Copenhagen to central Norway, but short of the Arctic Circle. It's the equivalent of Fairbanks, Alaska. So our extremes are 71 N, but only 64 1/2 S.

On the return, the stewardess twisted a deep blue paper napkin into a rose and presented it to Bev. She held on to it that whole day, plus all the next. After the Drake Passage the weather in Chile continued to be magnificent, so we actually got our first view of Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel from the air, the day before we sailed through and around them. It was as clear as seeing them on the map.

Falklands   We had two lectures about the Falklands, both very pro-British and heavily biased. I discussed the matter with Martyn Moss, the cruise director. It seems to me that a cruise lecture is naturally academic in nature, and is not a political rally. At least a hint of the Argentine position should have been referred to.

Customs officials usually get on the ship at the previous port. Chilean officials had gotton on in Peru, for example. However, Argentine officials got on in Chile, not the Falklands, since they consider the Falklands theirs, and they wanted to get on before Argentina. This matter is not solved. Argentina has claimed the islands (West Falkland and East Falkland) since they had had a settlement there in the 1820's.

When we took the ferry from Jersey to France last summer, we got off in Saint Malo. The taxi we then took was from Taxis Malouines, since that last word means "of St Malo". The French had an early settlement on the Falklands and named them after St Malo, the Îles Malouines, or in Spanish, the Islas Malvinas, which Argentine still calls them. The only decent English translation of that name would be the "St Malo Islands". Apparently Falkland was a British peer of the time the British first arrived. It is curious that two small towns near the English Channel, Dutch Hoorn and French St Malo, should have left their names in the South Atlantic. Chile is # 90 for us, and the Falklands/Malvinas # 91.