Anderson South America Misadventure Day 16 – Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile “Brother Can You Spare 21 Days of Supplies?” March 19, 2020

After a lot of negotiations we will be allowed to restock and refuel in Valparaiso. Sanantonio would not allow the ship even in their harbor. Now when I say that we are restocking and refueling in Valparaiso we will not be allowed to dock there. The ship will be at anchor. All supplies will be brought out to the ship by small boats with small cranes and is expected to last 24 hours. You know that I will be taking pictures. The fact that they are loading a 21 day supply makes me a tad uneasy but I will tell you that the bananas on the Lido are a little sad. I hope that they have a good recipe for banana bread. Chile has decided that they needed our passports back so that they can do an exit stamp. Luckily they did it by floor so I did not have to battle a lot of people. I should have gone later but what else am I doing with my time? As I stoop in line I kept trying to practice “social distancing.” People did not get that concept. Even when I would cough they were too close. BACK OFF. I finally stood off to the side. Welcome to the new normal. We have sunshine today and it is so nice to see it again. It was amazing how this affects everyone’s moods. People were more polite and less spacey. As we head north it is getting warmer. I know that we are North of the Southern 45th parallel but not to the equator yet. They even opened the dome over the lido pool. Today Rob’s cold was worse so he agreed to a lighter activity day. For those of you who know him stop laughing, this is like keeping a hummingbird in a box. We played South American trivia in the theater. We were a team of two to keep distance from other people. When the cruise director put a photo of a city that we had to identify someone said that it was not fair we had not been there yet. His reply? “I do not know why you said ‘yet.’” That got a good laugh. He said to not worry about how you did this was for fun but you needed a 10 to get off of the ship. We are sunk, we got an 8. We have signed up for a model boat building competition. They do not give you any supplies, you have to provide your own. Ours will be built on two Lysol wipes containers, held together with rubber bands and named the “Get Me the Hell Off of this Ship.” Lunch and then team trivia. We warned Donna and Jim that Rob had a cold. I keep telling him that sinus infections are not contagious. If I am wrong please do not post that here. I need some leverage. We won for the 3rd day in a row with a perfect score. We have Brit on our team and while she does not know much of the other trivia she knows the British stuff. I had threatened Rob that if he did not willingly take a nap I would have his brother sit on him. No need to threaten, he was tired. We played another trivia game and ate dinner in the Lido so that we did not eat with other people. The show after dinner was Celli. We had seen them twice before on this cruise and as the cruise director put it “they are back because they cannot return to their home country.” They are very good and funny. They played “Yellow Submarine” sitting on the same chair, playing one cello with two bows and both fingering. Amazing how it worked. They got the crowd singing along. It was a nice way to end the day. I took pictures of the Lido to show one way that they are keeping us safe. You cannot serve yourself anything except coffee and tea and the coffee area gets sanitized every 20 minutes. I have contacted both of our senators and our congressional rep asking for help. I heard back from the congressional rep's office. One person wanted me to download a file, fill it out and then scan and email it or fax it back. I pointed out that I was on a cruise ship and did not have access to a printer, scanner or fax machine. I sent it to Victoria and she filled it out. Man, does she know how to fill out a form. Really plead our case well. Then we ended the day with a sunset.