Silversea Explorer, Cape Horn to Cape of Good Hope

Quite a journey this one - we flew from Alicante to London Gatwick, bussed to Heathrow, then British Airways flight to Buenos Aires. Overnight Buenos Aires, then flight Ushuaia, where we picked up Silversea Explorer for the voyage via Falklands , South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha to Cape Town. From there a flight to Windhoek in Namibia via Johannesburg. There we rented 4*4 and drove round Namibia ending at Vic Falls and from there back to Alicante via J'Burg, London Heathrow and London Gatwick

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We overnighted in a hotel in Palmero District of Buenos Aires It was The Fierro, a small, as they say, boutique hotel. It was a good choice. Our flight from Europe arrived at the crack of dawn, and it takes about an hour to get into BA from the International Airport. The hotel arranged a pick up for us, and that saved the "taxi driver scrum" that would have been the alternative. Time to load up with some Argentine Pesos at the Airport ATM is also worth while.

As we had the day to kill, we were able to stroll around the Palmero Soho area of BA, enjoy (or at least some of us) the roof top pool, and have late lunch at the Fin del Mundo Restaurante . Then it was early to bed, as next morning an early call and breakfast in the room, to leave at 6am for the charter flight from the National Airport, which is a 20 minute taxi from the hotel.

Check in with Silversea at the airport was a bit, read extremely, disorganised, and I was surprised that all the punters managed to make the plane- well I assume they all made it, because if you missed the plane you missed the boat and the whole cruise. A few hours later the plane made a spectacular approach into Ushuaia airport (named provocatively "Malvinas International") . Here the 60 or so passengers for the cruise were decanted into 2 buses for a lunch trip to "Casa de Te" restaurant at the approach to the National Park. A middle of the road meal, used to hold us until the ship was turned round from its last cruise. Mind you the lupins in the restaurant garden were memorable, it must have been just the right climate for them

So by 3pm we were aboard the SS Silversea Explorer. Repositioning cruises like this one, which include many days at sea, never attract too many passengers, happily, and the ship was only half full with 60 of us and 100 crew to look after us. These repositioning cruises represent very good value for money.

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Having installed the boys in their new home, a "Vista Class" cabin, we went up on deck to partake in the obligatory safety drill, followed by the opportunity to watch South America slip away from us as we headed out into the Atlantic, towards our first stop at the Falklands. Here we had three stops for landings. After that South Georgia, where we had a number of different landing sites. Then east to Tristan da Cunha, where weather stopped us landing. and more sea days to Cape Town. By the time we got to Cape Town we had been 10 days without going ashore, and had certainly got our sea legs - to the extent that it took another week ashore before the world stopped going up and down with a nonexistent sea motion

The full cruise itinerary is below with links to individual pages and a further page on shipboard life.

David Grant Holidays