Dsquared
David
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Rockin and Rollin, Mar. 4 
March 9, 2012
Not a whole lot to report on our first full day at sea - Sunday. We are still motoring along and will be until tomorrow when we reach the glacier! Last night (Saturday) was pretty rough and tumble for a few hours as the crew had advised. We crossed a strait where the Pacific ocean enters the archipelago and this creates the turbulence. We secured all the doors and put breakables on the floor and went to sleep. Great roller coaster of a night of sleep. Woke up very refreshed though and ready for Desayuno. At las ocho y media, brazilian bird music was piped into our room, announcing the opening of the dining room for breakfast. After a delicious desayuno, the sun came out and all of us seemed to eventually materialize on the upper deck. We took pictures of each other, visited the captain's cockpit (notice how I know all the nautical terms?), chatted with the Canary Island folks (more to come), and watched or participated in an impromptu exercise class, led by a very enthusiastic Chilena.

The Canary island threesome consists of esposa and esposo and the esposa's younger sister. He owns three hotels on the Canary islands (nearest land/country is Morocco but it is part of Spain). He (of course) said it is a fabulous place to vacation. We took down his contact info - quien save - may be our next vacation? We call the the 'canaries'.

After tea, the 2 media crew leaders led a presentacion on the highlight of the trip we would experience manana - the San Rafael Glacier. Very informative stuff, although I estimate I only got about 75% of it due to delay in English translation and the interesting translations themselves. E.g. "After we returned on the glacier, we will have some soap" (oh, right - soup!). They showed data on the shrinkage of this glacier over the last 100 years (about 10km) and most other glaciers. Incredible that global warming is still disputed. The slight sliver lining is that there are a handful of glaciers that are actually growing. [see details from B post].

Before dinner, we went to the quitralco (named after the thermal hot springs we will visit tomorrow in Quitralco) lounge for karaoke. They had a million songs in both Spanish and English. Take a guess which were more popular. However, without due modesty, I must say we represented the Ingles speaking world quite admirably, signing duets of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" (seemed appropriate with lyrics like - "the ice is slowly melting") and The King's "Can't Help Falling in Love". We nailed the first, but about half way through the Elvis song, the music seemed to switch to a minor key, which rattled even pros like us. The other participants still yelled "Bravo", "My bueno", etc. Thankfully, after several drinks, they were not so discriminating.

And, the fun did not stop there. After dinner, there was an informal dance (not to be confused with the formal Captain's dinner/dance the last evening). We voted the Canary Islands couple most likely to be invited to "Dance with the Stars".

Manana - we await with great anticipation seeing a real live big glacier.
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