4 Feb - Cruising the Chilean Fjords, got some great pictures and Ann's adventures in the Golden Lion (she enters a Mr & Mrs competition with Frank, the 91 year old American)... funniest thing I've ever seen! 

Pio XI Glacier

The ship started her final approach to Pio XI Glacier just after 2 PM. The fjord had been formed hundreds of thousands of years ago. Almost shear sided cliffs slide by on each side of the ship and provided an appropriate taster for the scenery at the end of the fjord.

It was a bitterly cold day with a bright blue sky and very clear air. Everybody had gathered in the forward areas of the ship to take photos of the glacier and things sometimes got rather heated as people jostled for the best positions. Both me and Ann thought this to be a bit strange, after all, you don't have to be the "Brain of Britain" to realise the ship must turn around at some stage and the very best viewing platform would then be at the stern of the ship. So, we took up occupation of a pair of bar stools in the open air bar on deck 8, ordered two Irish coffees and settled back to enjoy the views.

The ship stopped about 2 miles from the glacier and started to very slowly swing around in a 180 degree turn. Even from a distance the glacier appeared huge. The occasional thunder like sound would boom out as the glacier lurched forward and scrapped along the ground. I saw a small section fall away from the glacier cliff face and drop into the sea, but a much larger piece that must have fallen off earlier floated by and I took a great photo that shows one of the lifeboats circling the iceberg.

Remarkable scenery.

Mr & Mrs competition, Ann gets a new husband!!

We stayed in the open air bar for a few hours and had a great laugh with "Stan the Man" a New Yorker who's a bit of an onboard legend. He's got a customised thermos flask with a screw top and uses it to transport his beer from one bar to another (avoids spillage). Stan's a real character, he reminds me of my Uncle John! 

Stan was telling us (in his broad New York accent) about how he was feeling a bit rough one morning, so he visited the ship's doctor. They charged him $60 for a consultation and when the doctor could find nothing wrong with him, Stan asked for his money back, "Furr 60 bucks... yew better find something wrong with me!" (LOL). The doctor promptly diagnosed him as having "trapped wind" gave him some fart pills and charged him $103 (ROTFL)... you should hear Stan tell it, pure comedy.

Anyway, by 11 PM and after visiting most alcohol outlets on the ship, we ended up in the Golden Lion and met up with Kyle, John & Adriann for what we thought would be a last drink before bed. However, while visiting the gents I found "Frank" who was struggling to refit his cummerbund. I helped him out by advising him to "bin the bund" and zip up. 

Frank then came and joined our table. We'd met him before at the Commodore's cocktail party. He's 91, a gentleman with a great sense of humour and an outrageous flirt (smile). (One of the Mr & Mrs questions was Ann's bra size... Frank got it right first time, so no guessing where his gaze was most of the night (grin). Just imagine, 91 and still having lead in the pencil...)

I got another round in and then went off to the cabin to get my camera. On returning I found the table empty, except for Kyle who was doubled over laughing and pointing at the stage.

While I'd been gone a Mr & Mrs style completion had started. Somehow Ann had got roped into it and because I wasn't there, she used "Frank" as her husband. The whole place was in stitches and both Ann and Frank played along by pretending to have been married for years. Guess what... they came joint first and won a bottle of champagne!

I nearly split my sides laughing (me and Kyle cheated outrageously by miming the answers, which just added to the fun). 

The entertainment staff said afterwards that it was one of the best "Mr & Mrs shows" ever. In fact, the next day at breakfast, an American lady came up to me and said, "Frank's got one FUN wife, what's she doing in your cabin?"

Ann has a completely different tale about the event (of course), maybe I can get her to type it out along with the questions.

Glacier from 2 miles away, loads of other pictures, but they're basically all the same... ice, ice and more ice!

Iceberg ahoy! The lifeboat can carry 100 people and is about the length of a train carriage, so that's a serious chunk of ice. You can see by the wake that the iceberg was drifting at some speed and missed the stern by only a hundred or so yards.

Tough New Yorker - Stan the Man tells Ann his life story.

Ann & Frank a (combined) 148 year legend! 

Ann with her new husband Frank

More pictures showing all of the contestants. I was using a fisheye lens and no flash, so the images show "motion".

291 - Full Mr & Mrs competitors

289 - Full on shot!!

More Later...