They say “Third time is the charm!”
The Idiots were determined to take a boat tour to Magdalena Island to walk among the Magellanic penguins. The trip is a significant investment of time and money. The boat trip through the often-rough waters of the Straits of Magellan takes about 1 ½ hours. Participants are allowed to disembark and spend about an hour walking among the penguins – 60,000 – 80,000 of them – and visiting the lighthouse/museum. Altogether, with wait times and boarding – about 6 ½ hours.
The first reservation they tried to make fell victim to language issues. The second attempt the following day was cancelled due to weather. The third day – their final day in Punta Arenas – was going to be “it.”
Idiot He got some great photos...
Unfortunately, He got these great photos by taking pictures of the posters and promo videos on the walls of the Comapa office while waiting in a long line to arrange a refund for their aborted trip.
It happened like this...
It was a cold, rainy day... but the winds were not too bad and the ship departed on schedule. Through rainy, steamy windows the Idiots wondered at how many shades of gray there are. Idiot She took a bad selfie. There was a dolphin out there... really...
The long ride through the drab afternoon was pretty boring, but excitement built as Magdalena Island came into sight. Everyone prepared their cameras and donned their foul weather gear. Idiot He told She that they would be comfor table because in choosing their clothing he'd followed the advice of a big, auburn-haired Viking... and every one knows that Rudolph the Red knows raingear,
As they approached the island, they could see thousands of penguins doing penguiny things. Idiot He tried to take a few photos, but the windows were obscured by rain on the outside and humidity on the inside...
so He waited patiently for the ship to moor and extend the gangplank to the shore. The ship nudged onto the rocky shoal...
and then it backed up, and nudged up again... and again and again... It rapidly became clear the captain was having trouble making the landing. He backed the ship up several times to reposition it... and twice the crew ran the gangplank out.
The captain backed up once more and the Idiots thought this was going to be it – a different angle should do the trick! Instead, the captain turned the ship away from the island – and accelerated rapidly. Only then did they announce that the tide was too low and the gangplank couldn't reach the shore. Of course, by then it was impossible for passengers to take even poor photos through the windows. Most of them, like Idiot He, had waited for the shore excursion.
It was such foolish customer service. If they had just taken one slow pass by before departing, letting folks on both sides of the boat get a few photos, they would have had a much happier group.
The ship headed back to Punta Arenas and the trip was pretty much a five hour bust. And then the passengers learned that if they wanted a refund they had to return to the downtown Comapa tour office... where a single clerical person could verify refunds for the roughly 80 passengers. This on top of the two previous visits to the office and hour-long waits to make the reservations. Luckily the Idiots knew where the office was and had their own car, so they were in the first dozen to arrive. Total investment – about 10 hours of not much penguin and a lot of tedium.
And the Idiots had a good time anyway. They were not going to let a little disappointment destroy their Idiot Serenity. Some travelers expect things to go right and get very upset when they don't. An accomplished Idiot traveler expects stuff to go wrong and is pleasantly surprised when it doesn't.
Idiot He took it as a challenge to try to get pictures of penguins from a rapidly moving ship through rain covered windows. The white spots are gulls and cormorants... the black spots are penguins. The more they are enlarged, the more the pictures look like oil paintings. The last three are birds in flight - a gull, a lone albatross, and a group of cormorants flashing along near the waving surface through rising winds...
By the time they got back to their hotel, they had eaten a good dinner and drunk a bottle of good wine – and they had plans B and C in the works. Rolling with the punches is an essential element of Idiot travel. When traveling, it is so important not to let the things that haven't gone right previously infect what comes next. Actually... that applies to most of life, doesn't it?
The best bird sighting of the day – the carved bird by the door to snug Room 3 at Hostal Akainik at the end of a long day...
