Image Up Advertising & Design

18 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JANUARY 2025 Having fun watching the Kings By Wayne E. Staples In January 2020, Cheryl and I embarked on a journey that would complete some of our "bucket list" travels. This included a land adventure and a cruise. We started by flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina and met four soon-to-be friends, one from Connecticut, two from Canada, and one from Australia. After arriving in Argentina, we flew to the Iguazu Falls, one of the largest and most magnificent waterfalls in the world. When finished visiting the falls from above, we descended 200 steps to the shore of the lake at the bottom of the falls, where we boarded a small boat that would take us under the falls. That was a thrilling experience! But remember, we came down 200 steps and now needed to go back up. With a temperature in the 90s and the humidity around 90 percent, the staff helped both of us to make it to the top. It was worth it! The next day we boarded our cruise ship, the Coral Princess, for the rest of our adventure. There were three parts to this cruise on which I would like to elaborate. First is the Falkland Islands to see the penguins. Upon arriving in port, we boarded a four-by-four Land Rover for a two-hour bumpy ride over farm land and pastures to the nesting area of three species of penguins: the King, the Magellanic, and the Gentoo. The largest group were the Kings where thousands were living in a colony. We watched them going back and forth to the ocean, waddling in their "tuxedo outfits." Closer to the ocean, the Magellanic lived in homes burrowed into the sandy beaches, while the Gentoos were in smaller colonies scattered around the area. Antarctica was ice, ice, ice, and more ice. But beautiful, fantastic, gigantic ice. We spent four nights and three days floating among these icebergs in the Bransfield Straight. Along the way we saw more penguins, the Chinstrap, lounging on the ice. There were lots of birds and whales. We also passed by research stations from a number of countries. When we were nearby the American research station, the captain put a small boat into the water and sent pizzas to the staff at the station. Shortly after leaving Antarctica, we passed by a small island called Deception Island. Deception Island is a dormant volcano that has one small entrance to a large caldera. Our captain said that the Coral Princess would be the largest ship to ever enter the interior of the island, but he was given permission to enter and was going to give it a try. The entrance was very narrow and bordered on the right by a high rocky cliff and on the left by a colony of Chinstrap penguins. We made one circle of the caldera and passed by the Deception Research Station before exiting through the same narrow passage through which we entered. Unfortunately for others, they will not have the experience we had, because recently a ruling was passed that all ships with over 100 passengers would be barred from entry into the caldera. As we headed northward toward the mainland of South America, we rounded Cape Horn (actually named Hornos Island). This area which is usually hazardous, owing to strong winds, large waves, strong currents, and icebergs was so smooth that we rounded the island twice. We then made stops in Ushuaia and Punta Arenas before docking and disembarking in Santiago, Chile. Our wonderful exciting adventure had come to an end. Upon arriving home, at the beginning of February we were met with the beginning of the pandemic and sadly to say it would be one and a half years before we could cruise again. Gladly, we had these wonderful, magnificent memories to tide us over. Antarctica and Environs

• Cover