Today's port of call was San Antonio, Chile and a port that we have only been to once back in 2020. The stop here was always Valparaiso, a very nice resort-type of a city and very walkable. For some reason and from what we have heard, the larger cruise ships were not welcomed to dock there anymore. The new facilities in Valparaiso appear to appeal to the upper end of the cruise ships such as Seabourn, Regent, or Silverseas. If we wanted to visit there today, we would have had to book a tour as it was over 50 miles away from San Antonio.
The Volendam arrived nice and early to find the P & O Aurora already docked. That ship is a little bigger than us with 76,000 gross tons and 1874 passengers. The crew numbers 850 and seems to have more of the British or Australian guests depending on where the cruise initiates.
So what is there to do here? The ship offered easy San Antonio and villages for 4 hours and $100 with a snack. Isla Negra and museum was $110 for 3 hours. Panoramic landscapes and a winery was 4 hours for $110. Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar was 6 hours for $140. Highlights of Santiago was 8 hours for $180 with lunch, while the best of Valparaiso with lunch was $180 for 7 hours. Wine and horses was 6 hours for $230. Two tours for guests leaving the ship today were transfers to Santiago for 9 hours and $200 with a lunch. The second transfer was also to Santiago and a winery for 9 hours with lunch and $230. The drive to Santiago one way was 1 ? hours. We remember it because we flew home from there many years ago.
It was going to be a very nice day with blue skies and temps in the high 60's. The humidity was 79% with 3.2 mph winds. The wind speed would increase later in the day and become a problem.
There was a crew drill held at 9:30am with "man overboard". That always gets our attention. And it was a good time to leave the ship for us around 10am. We did the same thing we did 6 years ago, and that was take a hike to a harbor promenade and shopping mall. But first, we did recall that the port did not allow pedestrian traffic, so we had to take a shuttle from the ship to the port entrance and terminal. It was a five minute or so ride in very nice coaches. Once inside the terminal, we all had to go through xray. That's when we spotted something really funny. There is always a sign with warnings about what not to bring ashore. No food, sandwiches, fruit, animals or beverages other than water and today coffee was allowed. So before we went through the checkpoint, we noticed someone had left a bag of popcorn in the bin that we get in the Wajang Theater. Guess they figured it was not worth the fine for such a small forbidden snack.
Paseo Bellamar was the name of the harbor promenade where there were views of the bay, local shops, benches and street vendors. Many fast-food mini cafes lined the waterfront. Ice cream and popsicles were sold from stands or ladies pulling Styrofoam boxes. Even though today was Tuesday, this area was plenty busy with locals….many dragging their little kids along. There were plenty of stands with balloons, sweets, and toys to keep the little ones happy.
There were so many small fishing boats in this little harbor that we lost count. The colors were brilliant and bright, making for really great photos. This has to be one of the largest fishing hubs in the country.
At the end of this promenade was a fish market, similar to the one we saw in Puerto Montt. It was smelly, but no worse than any other fish markets in other locations around the world. Everything seafood was offered for sale including take-away cerviches in plastic containers. All of the produce was really nice, but we did see boxes labeled "shipped from Ecuador".
The big draw to this market has to be the giant sea lions that will come here to beg for fish scraps. One such male was laying on the rocks, and had been fighting at some point. He was left with some ugly bruises. These are the Patagonian sea lions we saw in Puerto Montt two days ago. The males we saw here could weigh up to 770 pounds and are about 7 feet in length. They have very large heads with a pug-like nose and a prominent light color mane. They commonly dine on fish, squid, and octopus or anything else that gets handed to them. They like to bask in the sun on beaches or large smooth rocks, like we saw in the fjords a few days ago. The females which we did not see today can weigh 330 pounds and wean their pups at 12 months. It is estimated there are 265,000 of them left in the wild.
One huge sea lion, a male, had beached itself right below the fish market. Laying over, it appeared lifeless. However, it was watching through squinted eyes, because one of us went right down within several feet of it, and took some pictures. Hello……that's what the zoom on the camera is for. One of us did not go down to the sandy beach because I knew I could not run fast enough to escape this monster if it decided it did not like us that close. Suddenly, the sea lion stood up on its front fins and must have been well over 6 feet in height. By now, Bill had company as other guests had to get close-up pictures as well. Eventually, sea lion decided he was tired of the attention and slithered out into the surf and dove into the bay.
Very close to this beach was a pier where local people were taking small boats to somewhere. Not sure if this was a water taxi pier or a tour of the bay dock. Watching the stream of folks boarding the boats, they looked like they were touring the harbor where the two cruise ships were docked. We could hear narration in Spanish as they left the market dock. This was also a spot where the sea lions congregated for the free handouts of fish scraps.
At the end of this market was a mall, which was accessed by stairs or ramps to a lower level group of stores. These were more like convenient shops for snack-like food, a pharmacy, and a few trinket stores. By going up an escalator, we entered the mall that was split it two sections. The name of this mall was IPolar with the usual department stores, electronics, cosmetics, jewelry, and pharmacies. The key occupant looked like a Levi shop. There were restrooms, which we took advantage of. Not needing anything at this mall, we exited and headed back to the promenade avenue. Had we walked through the second floor of this mall, we would have entered the Plaza de Armas with colonial history, walkways, sea lion and boat scenery, and a handful of restaurants and some banks. There did not seem to be a suitable restaurant for us, let alone a pizzeria, in this entire area. There was an upper level in the mall that offered typical fast-food restaurants such as Subway.
Today almost 200 people left the ship and about the same number boarded. We returned to the terminal by 1pm and ran into Florin who asked how we liked the Mariner Event yesterday. We let him know his idea of adding the entertainment was brilliant, especially having Josh, the travel guide , sing for us. Remarking how talented we thought he was, Florin informed us that Josh had a 20 year career as an opera singer. We knew he was far more advanced in his training and was not a karaoke star. We suggested a repeat performance would be welcomed in the future. And on a side note, we informed Florin that his name had been omitted on our complimentary photo from the Mariner event. He had a very surprised look and said he would investigate that.
It was a room service lunch with Cobb salads a one mini slider each. Their salads are far better through room service than in the dining room at night….more like entr?e size. Then at 3:30pm, the Captain announced that it was mandatory for the newly embarked guests to attend the muster drill by scanning their room keys. The rest of us were fine. More information would come at a later announcement by the Captain, which we figured would be around 4:30pm the all aboard time.
But the announcement never came until 5:30pm , when Captain Rens told us the port was closed to traffic by the local authorities, and we would not be leaving due to winds over 15 knots. We happened to notice that we were still bunkering fuel, but that was not mentioned. And the P&O ship was also docked, not leaving either. We still have 2000 nautical miles to reach Easter Island but have four sea days to do it. Captain Rens promised fairly good weather, but we may expect some motion of the ocean (understatement). There would be no problem making up the lost time.
We were still docked at our dinner time of 7:45pm. The winds did not appear to be all that bad and had definitely dropped well below the 15 knots level. But here we were still docked. Dinner was a bowl of different chicken soup and a salad. Mains were huli-huli chicken with macaroni salad and one sliced beef brisket with mashed potatoes and veggies which resembled the short rib dish. Both were delicious although could have been hotter. We did not notice too many new guests in the upper dining room, so we expected they went to the welcome onboard steak dinner in the Lido instead. No dessert tonight for us.
The ship finally left the port at 10:30pm where we felt the motion of the ocean instantly. We suspect the four days at sea heading due west to Easter Island may be a rough ride.
Bill & Mary Ann
