Let’s dream about….

Our second sea day started spectacular with a lot of sunshine and a moderate sea. Our first view out of the windows showed us that we have been followed by a huge amount of birds: Black-browed Albatrosses, Wandering Albatrosses, Northern and Southern Giant Petrels, Cape Petrels and prions. It was so nice to watch them. Their flight looked unbelievable light; we had the feeling that they did not need too much energy to follow us. Some passengers even wished to be able to fly with the birds; at least a wonderful dream!

During the day we were focused to the lectures again. There was still so much to learn before we will reach our first destination, the Falkland Islands. And why shouldn’t we use our qualified international lecturer team. All members of our expedition team are coming from a different country: Chile, USA, Canada, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain and Switzerland. To make it even more interesting we can let you know, that the lecturer from Switzerland is originally from Mexico. So, we have a lot of knowledge from all over the world available her on board MV FRAM.

In the early afternoon, just before the second lecture series started we heard the announcement: Whales! Everybody tried to run out to the open decks or at least to the Panorama Lounge. Our Captain reduced the speed a little bit and so we could watch them, the giants of the sea - three Fin whales. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to swim with the whales? That’s at least another wonderful dream!

Settling into ship life

A beautiful calm night and some much needed rest for all on board MV Fram prepared us for a beautiful morning. Out on deck in short sleeves with fantastic clear skies we were treated to numerous bird sightings – Manx and Greater Shearwaters, Black-browed and Yellow-nosed Albatross, Magellanic Penguins, White-chinned Petrel as well as some stowaways – Eared Doves, Couch’s Kingbird, Grassland yellow-Finch and 
inside a dragon fly.

The lecture programme started in earnest with John introducing the natural history of the Falklands and South Georgia, Nacho did a fascinating talk about Evita, Friederike and Bob continued preparations for our visits to the Falkland Islands with talks on the Geography, Geology and the Geopolitics.

We are making good steady progress, only 2 more days until we reach the Falklands, with slightly more motion can be felt in the ship as a result of freshening winds. 

New Year's Day

The Fram's year is split into two parts- the northern summer season in Europe and the Arctic, and the southern summer season in Antarctica. Today we started our Antarctica season and it feels a bit like the start of the new year!

Our New Year started in the harbour of Buenos Aires, capital of the Republic of Argentina. This huge, bustling, vibrant city lies on the southern shore of the Rio de la Plata or River Plate and this superlative river is our way out to the open ocean of the South Atlantic and on to the Falkland Islands and parts farther east and south.

We all had a busy day on board. Passengers left their hotel nearby and arrived at the ship in the morning. Their luggage was already being sorted and sent to their cabins. Expedition staff, crew officers were busy prepping the ship for their arrival.

We packed a lot in to the day with embarkation and settling in to our new home for the next 19 days, the mandatory safety briefing, the Captain's welcome reception and lectures in the afternoon. Oh yes we squeezed in a couple of very nice meals in there too!

For the next three days we will be at sea before we arrive at the amazing Falkland Islands. In the meantime, please come back to our blog and follow our travels in this amazing part of the world.

The end of a great crossing

During the last days we could easily recognize that we came nearer to South America’s coastline as we got the first land birds, mosquitoes and moths, like the “Sphingidae Hawkmoth” on board. App. 12:30am we could see the first land, the lights of any town in Uruguay. From now on we will not have the view from horizon to horizon anymore; after 17 sea days a very special feeling.

Yesterday all refurbishment we had on board during the crossing has been finished. The workers on board had done a good job. Especially our Hotel Manager was “very amused” that the reconstruction of our board shop could be finished in time. It is so much bigger and nicer than before. In the morning of the 31. of October all passengers have been invited to a “Grand Opening”. As everybody got as a surprise 25% off, passengers and crew started directly with a first shopping.

Today we reached Buenos Aires in the early morning. Birds were singing their morning songs when we went alongside the pier around 7am. Now it was time to say good bye. We hope that we can welcome many of our passengers at any time for any cruise back on board. 

From a passengers viewpoint

A unique Experience

Today is our last day on the open sea which is almost unbelievable as it means that we are meanwhile sixteen days on the way since we left Las Palmas. When we entered the ship on October 14^th everything seemed to be so far away and now we will reach Buenos Aires within less than 36 hours. Everybody of the passengers had a certain purpose to go onto this journey; ones wanted to have this infinite view from one side of the horizon to the other, others to relax from all the stress in the daily life. Some wanted to make the special experience of a long trip across the sea and some simply wanted a comfortable way to get to South America. As different as our expectations was the way to get used to life onboard. But finally nobody was able to evade the rhythm of the ship with its gentle moving up and down in the waves. We got to know each other very fast and easy and in only a few days our group of Couples and alone riding became more and more a temporary family. As we are in total only 27 passengers we were able to do things that cannot be done on a normal cruise. We had a sightseeing tour through the ship and after that we know now that the Fram with her mixture of Greenlandic and Scandinavian art is a sculpture in a whole! We also have seen the “heart and brain” of the ship which in the Chief machinist’s eyes is the same anyway – the engine room. The officers during our visits at the bridge had a different view – but only a little bit. Between our lectures, cooking lessons and sport competitions we were happy to recover for some time when taking a bath in the sun or nap in the shades (unfortunately sometimes also the other way around) to be fit again for the evening when we had so much fun together with the crew. Everybody found his favorite place on board either inside or outside and slowly but surely the days went on. Suddenly we had to realize that is really day 16 on board. Tomorrow we will reach the Rio de la Plata and we will see the first piece of land since we left the Canary Islands. Who will be the first to discover the coast? What will be the first thing to be seen – maybe a tree?

Some things may have developed a little different than initial expected but we all have made a unique experience and we are still curious what the last day will bring us. Probably the crew welfare committee is already preparing one or the other surprise for the last evening. For all these efforts we say “Tusen takk”, “Thank You” and “Salamat at Paalam” to the whole crew of MV Fram! Maybe one day we will meet again for a “crossing” when we need some time to relax or a comfortable way to get to Europe or with no special purpose at all.

Martin 

Here you can see Martin sitting in his chair on deck 5. The picture is painted by Dorothy Deringer. She painted her own diary with all these unbelievable nice pictures. And the best of all: She gave us a nice exhibition of her art the day before. Thank you Dorothy, you are wonderful and thank you Martin for writing the blog today; of course you are wonderful too! 

Halloweeeeen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We started the day more or less serious with a German lecture about whales. In the early afternoon we had our last meeting with the Navigation Officer on the bridge. After all these navigation lessons we felt a little bit like seamen but we are not quite sure if someone will give us a job in our new profession.

Later on we started to prepare our Halloween costumes as we should have a Halloween Party this evening. Of course we knew that it was a little bit early for this celebration but we didn´t want to have this event on our last day.

Just before the party started our Captain – dressed in his funny costume already – handed out the certificates to the winners of all our competitions we had before. Look at the pictures and you can see how much fun we had.

    

We spotted the „Spotted Dolphins“

After all these games and competitions we had during the last days we made the decision to have a lazy day today. But lazy days can become also wonderful. Just before breakfast we had our first visitor – a jumping “Giant oceanic manta ray”. First of all our Safety Officer Jan Olaf and Friederike from the Expedition team saw it from the bridge. The Ray was jumping again and again very high out of the water. Some passengers saw it too as they have been out on deck 5 just as it happens. Sorry, we have no photo, nobody from us expected a jumping Ray, and you have to believe us, perhaps at least the Safety Officer.

Later during the day we got even more visitors. Martin spotted a huge school of “Atlantic Spotted Dolphins”. The dolphins joined us for at least two hours riding in our bow wave. It was difficult to photograph them, but all passengers found their personal way to catch them with their camera. Look at the photos and you will understand.

At 3pm we had our teatime with fresh waffles out on the open deck.

Afterwards we met for an informative talk with our Captain, the Hotel Manager and the Chief Engineer. It was nice that they spent so much time with us.

Let´s have fun together

Time flied during the last days. We had lectures in the morning, meetings with the Navigation Officer after lunchtime, cooking sessionswith the Chef in the afternoon and competitions in the evening. We cannot describe this all with words, so we made the decision: Let the pictures talk and we hope you will understand the most significant part of our life here on board: Let´s have fun – all together; passengers, officers, crew and workers.