Monday, January 30, 2012

Last Day of the Cruise

I am soooo tired and ready to come home.  I want to sleep in a bed that doesn’t move.  Last night was another awful night with pitching and bouncing.  I have not stated the wave height in previous posts, but now I will tell you that the seas have been running around 18-25 feet.  Stabilizers work for the side to side motion, but don’t do a thing when you are going into them.  And nothing works when you are in bow. 

After leaving Puerto Montt yesterday afternoon, we had about four hours of inside passage sailing so our formal night dinner was quite pleasant.  The cooks go all out on formal night with lobster thermador and Grand Marnier soufflé and ice cream truffles. We dined with a couple from the desert and hope to see them when we get home.  Michael looked handsome in his tux and I looked fat.  I need to wash all the salt and sugar out of my system.  I am going to get rid of all the goodies we have that are left over from the holidays and will only eat fruits and vegetables.  Oh yeah, and I’m the tooth fairy. 

Today is our last day of the cruise.  It is always a bittersweet time.  Time to say good-bye, time to pack, time to have your last food orgy.  This has been our home for the past month.  We live wherever we are at the moment.  My mind has started the shift from bridge and cruise to going home.  When you travel as much as we do, you have to have the ability to shift quickly mentally or otherwise one can get a sense of not being rooted.  Michael is ready to stay aboard, I am ready to go home.

The morning was a bit rough, so it was get dressed and get topside.  I am no longer hungry.  I cannot eat any more. My digestive system is in overload.  I feel like the character from the movie “Alien” whose stomach bursts open and a baby alien pops out.   In my case, it is probably a huge chocolate chip cookie.  Everyone is walking around clutching their tummys saying “no more food.”  Yet they continue to bring out the food.  Today was the lunch grand buffet; salad and cold items were set up in one portion of the dining room, and incredibly beautiful desserts that were so tempting were displayed in the center.  The hot food was served from the galley, which is something to see.  Most people never see the inside of the galley.  This is a little city unto itself, all gleaming stainless steel sectioned into food preparation areas.  The freezers are so big, you could live inside one.  Today, we got to walk into the galley to get the hot food and see all the cooks manning their stations.

We started packing our suitcases.  But first, we both took a Dramamine.  There is just too much movement to feel comfortable in our cabin.  Packing is a big pain in the keester.  We are concerned with the weight, but also need to leave out things for the morning.  It is a big game of how to sort the weight as well as how to fit in huge balls of yarn.  My roll-aboard will contain things we need for tonight and tomorrow morning, a change of clothes for the flight home and everything else we couldn’t fit in the suitcases.  The rest of the bags need to be placed outside your door by midnight so the crew can collect and sort them for the disembarkation.  When you get off the ship, your bags will be waiting for you.  Tomorrow, we will have to repack the suitcases to include the toiletries and the clothes we will wear tomorrow while touring.

After a nice dinner with our PYC friends, we bid adieu.  Tomorrow our driver/guide picks us up and then we will spend the day touring Valparaiso and the Chilean wine country before heading to Santiago and the airport for a midnight flight home.


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