Purple Ribbons for the Countdown

Originally posted December 29, 2005 by Linda Lou Burton from Drake Passage, Argentina – Last day on the ship! Here’s the sedge-ool, we’ve been told.

• 1000 Pick up your colored ribbons. Purple for flight #1, red for #2. Attach to luggage, put luggage outside cabin door by 2200 hours.
• 1100 Alan Parker lecture: The Antarctic Treaty and the Future of Antarctica, Kapp Horn Hall.
• 1200 Lunch buffet.
• 1430 Manuel’s Annual Bird Drawing Contest (multi-lingual all ages) in Torghatten Salong – Prizes! Prizes! (will my poem win?)
• 1630 Special Charity Auction to raise money for Antarctic research. For bidding – Expedition Jackets and the Captain’s Master Voyage Chart!
• 1900 Captain’s Dinner.

And then, early to bed. Breakfast tomorrow at 6, depart the ship by 8. Get off in Ushuaia, southernmost city in the world. I have purple ribbons I need to tie on the fancy-schmancy luggage, after I try to stuff everything back in, that is. Have I accumulated much?

I bought a wooden sheep at Estancia Fitz Roy, a tiny thing; just now I bought three watercolors from Doug. He’d painted Evie, the penguin I met at Admiralty Bay. And my certificate that I’d rounded the Horn, and reached the continent of Antarctica, a real prize!

I need to settle the bill, I need to calculate the tip. The sun is shining now, we’re riding north, Atlantic on the right, Pacific on the left. South America dead ahead.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be in Argentina. Solid ground, no more rock and roll.