Tribute to the Drake Passage (or Mar de Hoces)

Over the last few weeks, we've traveled tremendous distances by land, sea, and air. We had to take on quite a lot in order to make the journey to Antarctica. The obstacle that was the main concern was how would we deal with the Drake Passage?

The Drake is the confluence of many conditions that lead to the most turbulent seas on earth:

• The Pacific Ocean meets and mixes with the Atlantic Ocean.

• After passing Cape Horn, there is no shield from wind nor weather.

• The sea has a jagged bottom as the Andes mountains descend into the oceans for approximately 500 nautical miles from Ushuaia until they reemerge as the Antarctic peninsula.

  
  

So unbridled weather on top, mixed oceans, and a bumpy sea floor can make for a wild ride. We're so grateful for the anti-sea sickness patches. Even with having the relatively calm "Drake Lake" on our passage to Antarctica, the precautions were necessary.

We had four complete days at sea with no land in sight during our trip. These may not be the most action-packed videos but gives you a sense of the turbulence.

Hyper lapse video 1 - a sample of the "tame" Drake Lake we had on the way to Antarctica and on the first day of our voyage back to the Beagle Channel.

And as a comparison - below is hyper lapse video 2 - not quite a "Drake shake" but our second day headed back was a little rougher. Definitely needed to carefully stow the cabin even in a class 5 ice-breaker vessel.

A little rougher on the way back