Four Sea Days and the Punta Del Este, Uruguary - Updated

I have not posted because on sea days life is pretty dull.  We try and swim but are doing it in the afternoon as it is a little warmer but the water is still pretty chilly.  Yesterday we did swim in the morning but after 45 minutes, the safety officer came and decided to close the pool so we had to get out.  The water was fairly sloshy and you really had to work hard.  He felt it was not safe.  Bummer.  But we did get to swim for 45 minutes and we are the subject of many pictures.

One night we did eat in Prime 7.  We had a share table so we sat with Dana and Mike from CA, and Mark and Marsha from Boca.  Nice evening.  Mike is retired Army Special Forces.  Marsha is phd in audiology.  Good conversation and good food.  I had the Dover Sole again and Bob had the lobster tails.  They misunderstood him and brought him two tails.

Continuing on my needlepoint project.  Not doing much reading.

Last night we attended the CrewCapers show.  The kids do a good job.  We try to attend the show at least once during the cruise.

So on Thursday we anchored here in Punta Del Este.  This is a really nice beach town.  It is one of South America's most glamourous resorts and easily the most expensive place in Uruguay.  It is popular with Argentines and Brazilians.  It suffered during the recession, but has come back with a vengeance.

The area is relatively small, confined to a narrow peninsula that officially divides the Rio de la Plata from the Atlantic Ocean.  The city has a year round population of about 9,280.  The summer tourist boom adds to this with a large number of non residents.

We got up and had breakfast in La Veranda and then went swimming an hour later.  We had the pool to ourselves.  Most of the folks were off touring.  Just a few stay on board.  Then lunch and Bob's nap. We then took the tender into town and walked around.  Stopped and bought a salt and pepper grinders. We are still in code red so you need to wait for the waiters to bring them to the table and then they serve you so you have no control over how much.  So we will now have our own.

Pictures later of this wonderful place.  We do come back here on the next leg of the cruise.

This is a small island where there are tons of sea lions.  The island is called the Sea Wolves Island in the middle of Rio de la Plata.

This is a view of the coastline from our tender.

Tons of high rise buildings.  And a small beach.

Just another view of the buildings here in Punta del Este.

This is our tender.  We took a local boat over but returned on our own tender.

This is the tender dock in the town.

This is the tender we took over to the town.

And this is the way to get on the tender.

The dock area with lots of very nice boats tied up.

This tower is in the middle of the city.  These are dummies.

And of course, a touch of American fine dining.

Some of the buildings are quite modern.

They have a boardwalk all along the water edge.

Most of these buildings face the sun so they keep the shutters down to keep the units cooler.

Dinner in Compass Rose and we felt rushed.  So we finished early and did not go to the show because we had so much time to kill.

Returned to the cabin and I watched some more of Everest but still not finished it.  Maybe soon.