Happy New Year! By the time you read this, I will have departed from Louisville for a long-planned vacation. I depart from Louisville on Saturday, January 4 for an overnight flight to Santiago, Chile. I will proceed from the airport to the port city of San Antonio, Chile. On Monday, January 6 I will board the Holland America Oosterdam for a 22-day cruise. This will be the longest time I have spent on a cruise ship. As always, I will serve as the Cruise Ship Priest, offering Mass daily for the passengers and crew and remaining available for pastoral counseling, confessions, and anointing of the sick. This is my fifth voyage on the Oosterdam, and I am very familiar with the ship. Many of the officers and crew already know me and my never-too-short homilies.
This cruise is a “bucket list” item for me and a special way to celebrate my 25th anniversary as a priest. The first week of the cruise, we will travel south off the west coast of Chile, visiting numerous ports. On shore, I can visit the Andes Mountains, several volcanoes, and the southernmost city in the Western Hemisphere, Ushuaia.
The second week of the cruise is the big highlight. We will continue south through the infamous Drake Passage where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans converge. These may be rough seas. Then for four entire days we will visit Antarctica. While we do not leave the ship and go on shore, we cruise very slowly and very close to the shore where we will have the opportunity to see and photograph wildlife, including many penguins, and other animals that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world. It is summer in Antarctica so the temperature will be about 32° Fahrenheit. It is midnight sun so there is twenty-four hour-a-day access to the glaciers, the coast, and the stunning solace and silence of this unpopulated continent.
The final week of the cruise will again cross the Drake Passage and then travel northward along the eastern Argentinian coast. One stop will be in the Falkland Islands and there are two stops in Uruguay, as well as our final destination, Buenos Aires. I will disembark on Tuesday, January 28, fly overnight from Buenos Aires, and return to Louisville in the afternoon on January 29.
You are welcome to follow my journeys on Facebook where I will be posting many, many pictures. If you have not done so, feel free to send me a friend request at my birth name, Gary Padgett. I ask for your prayers for my safe travels, and I will keep all of you in prayer every day during the trip. After this trip, I will have visited six continents. All that is left is Australia and since you know me well, I am already on the lookout for an available cruise there, perhaps in 2026!
