The Antarctica Cruise Begins - and Our First Dinner

Tuesday, October 31 - First Evening on the Endurance

Entrance to the restaurant - named Two Seven Zero for its 270 degree views

Lots of seating options in the dining space - for twosomes and all sized groups

It was our first evening on the ship. We all met in the Ice Lounge at 6:45 and were introduced to Patrik Svardmyr, the Hotel Director and to Stefano Pozzi, the Expedition Director - both of whom we would get to know well in the upcoming days.

At 7:30 it was time for dinner - and the sun was just setting. We had left the pier and started our sail to the east out the Beagle Channel at 7 PM.  I picked a round table on the right, far aft of the dining room Two Seven Zero.  Dave and Kathy, and Liz from Australia, joined us for dinner.  Tonight they served a buffet, which was all decked out with Halloween decorations, as it is October 31!!  I had squash soup and a number of salads.  And tried one of each of their three Halloween themed pastries for dessert!

Yes, it is Halloween, and the dinner decorations fit the theme

Fresh, delicious salads

Adorable, Halloween themed deserts

We finished dinner by 9 PM and enjoyed the long golden glow of the evening twilight.  The Beagle Channel is 60 km and we were still passing snow capped mountains on our port side (Argentina) and islands on the right (Chile). We walked around the ship a bit, and took some photos of the common areas, especially Deck 8.  By then it was time to get ready for bed.  I purchased the ship's full package wifi,  $500 for the 22 days.  I couldn’t get it to work between 9 - 11:30 PM - everyone else must have been using their one free wifi hour. But it worked well after that and by 1 AM, I had posted 3 new blogs.

Deck 8 stern - with hot tubs, lounge chairs and sleeping igloos

You can reserve the igloo for an overnight stay to watch the stars at night

Large and well stocked Library on Deck 8 forward

The Library has a 270 degree view - a great place to watch for whales and spectacular scenery

Deck 8 has a Science Hub - and our resident scientist will be setting up microscopes 

Views of the Chilean side of the Beagle Channel

Sunset on the Argentinian side, Beagle Channel