Montevideo

We docked this morning at dawn. I was in shock. As the sun rose on the starboard side (apparently a beautiful sunrise no doubt colour enhanced by the air pollution) we were gazing out of the Portside window at a full working port and what is undoubtedly the arse end of the city. Once docked those on the starboard side gazed out onto a car park or similar under construction. It is hard to explain how jarring this return to reality and civilisation is. After the stunning wildness of Antartica and the sea vista of the last week, this looks and smells revolting.

Following an early breakfast that took us by surprise we were finally able to call the kids and our respective mothers. Aaah, the joy of a real-time connection, mixed in with beginning to understand in a more concrete way how this is impacting on people’s lives at home. And of course more technology issues, turning so many things off seems to be jamming up everything in reverse.

The webmail has stopped working, we are not exactly sure when. So emails may have, most probably have been lost. And this email cannot be sent until one of our email addresses decides to cooperate.

It is now 2 pm. Today’s disembarkation is meant to have happened by now but is delayed. I feel so sorry for those on 4 pm flights! They are all anxiously huddled in the lounge waiting for officials and a bus to turn up. Everything is being done to make sure there are no delays at our end and that they can disembark in a flash. As our leader Iain said this morning, this is a bit like a military operation and our approach is yes sir, no sir, as you wish sir. 

There is no gangplank in place at present. The passports for today’s passengers were all passed from ship to shore this morning in a bucket. Eeek. Imagine if they dropped the bucket into the brink. They have since, seemingly safely been passed back using the same method of bucket, rope and stick.

Lunch was full of people saying goodbyes. Sad, but we all want them off the ship, and for things to be progressing. Their progress smooths the way, we hope, for ours. 

In amongst the onboard chaos, we have done a preliminary sort and pack. Everything Antartica related in our biggest bag, not to be opened again until home. It was strangely soothing for both of us, creating a little bit of order within our current rather confined sphere of control. We even did our last, we fervently hope, ‘undie handwash’. Enough to get us home plus some. One can never have too many clean undies, right? 

5 pm

The disembarkation has now occurred, with 29 people successfully leaving the ship, and 3 rejected by Uruguayan authorities. Apparently their flights had either been cancelled or they were not showing up in the flight manifesto. Some lessons have been learnt from that process, so we’re glad we’re in the next batch.

For those boarding the coach, the welcoming sign on the front said ‘trip of a lifetime’, in Spanish. It certainly has been!!

We’ll keep you posted on our progress. Both our normal emails are now working, Jode is receiving texts and Jodes WhatsApp is still good. Please no phone calls. It is all a bit hectic and our wifi will be variable over the next few days. If we fly out tomorrow evening, we have a 19 hour layover in Santiago and currently a flight change indicating a delayed flight of one whole day in Sydney. Jeremy is going to try and work some magic with that one. 

We’re looking forward to communicating with you all in the new reality once we’re home.