The last day in port before leaving on the cruise is usually a frenzy of activity between loading up the ship with last minute supplies and equipment, topping off fuel tanks, and loading perishable items like fresh vegetables. It's also the time that scientists start panicking that they forgot one specific doo-dad that is critical to the cruise's success. So far I think we've got everything onboard, but I did send some of my team out into town to get a few items I'd forgotten to pack.
Yesterday afternoon though the dock was pretty quiet. There were no cranes or trucks on the pier and the few people walking around were having a tough time staying vertical. That's because it was very very windy yesterday. We had gusts up to 60 kts and sustained winds were inbetween 30-40 kts.
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Walking up the pier against the wind was pretty challenging yesterday.
The ships can't use their cranes in those conditions (due to safety reasons) so we were delayed in loading our supplies. There is also a strike occurring in parts of the Chilean customs or civil service which we were worried might also impact our ability to load the ship and leave on time. When we went out to lunch in town yesterday, we actually ran into a parade of protesting/striking Chileans. |
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| Protesters marching through the central plaza of Punta Arenas on wednesday afternoon. |
But thanks to the folks on the Gould (and the weather cooperating and laying down last night) we were able to start loading cargo early this morning and we are set to depart in just over an hour at 1400 (2pm) on Thanksgiving Day. We won't be able to watch any of the football games today, but fortunately we appear to have not fallen too far behind with our cruise schedule.
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