MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

All ready in Punta Arenas to receive Princess Anne

HRH Princess Anne

All is ready in Punta Arenas, extreme south of Chile, to receive Princess Anne next Monday where she will be landing after having visited the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and British Antarctica reports the local press.

Her Royal Highness is scheduled to spend the first of her three days in Chile, in Punta Arenas where a full agenda awaits including a visit to the British owned Standard Wool processing plant, tea with members of the British community and a formal dinner with the high command of Chile's III Naval Zone. "The agenda is so tight and has been programmed months ahead so there's not even time to visit the British School which I very much regret since it's so important and a milestone of British presence in the area", said John Rees UK honorary consul. Dinner with the Chilean naval officers will be onboard the Muñoz Gamero pontoon, an emblematic former British four masts sailing vessel from the XIX century which has been recovered and is used for special occasion receptions by the navy. The former "County of Peebles" was launched in June 1875 at the Barclay Curle & Co yards in Glasgow, Scotland, the same yard which built two Chilean frigates recently decommissioned and originally belonging to the Royal Navy, Condell and Lynch. "County of Peebles" sailed mostly to the East, Bombay, Calcutta, Mauritius Island and completed 23 years of service before she was purchased by the Chilean navy to act as a pontoon and coal deposit. She definitively docked in the Muñoz Gamero peninsula of Ultima Esperanza province on October 1898 and in 1966 was taken to her current location in the port of Punta Arenas, next to the Chilean navy missile fast patrol vessels. Punta Arenas press points out that the royal visitor will be received with full "British royal protocol", meaning Princess Anne will be addressed as "Her Royal Highness", and gently bowing the head before her. The press also underlines the very close and long standing links between the Chilean Navy and the Royal Navy. From Punta Arenas Princess Anne will be travelling to Viña del Mar, Valparaíso and Santiago completing her three days visit.