The Drake Passage…

We are taught in school that Sir Francis Drake was a great British explorer. The Chilean curriculum however, describes him as a weasely pirate that should have been hung up by his toenails. It is this Drake that the passage was named after. A few years before Drake first discovered the passage, Magellan discovered the Straights (…of Magellan) just north of Tierra del Fuego which open into the Pacific. At the time, everyone thought that Tierra del Fuego (the landmass which provides the southern side of the straight) was a part of the “southern continent” (now known as Antarctica). It was Drake who proved them wrong by rounding the horn and proceeding west to the Pacific.

We had both read the stories about the Drake Passage, and of course everyone has seen Russell Crowe in “Master and Commander”, so we were ready for anything! (Or so we thought). Well, the exciting weather never showed up. Once we got away from the continental shelf, it was smooth sailing, or more specifically, smooth motoring. In our skipper’s seven years travelling to Antarctica, they had only motored one other time… they referred to our passage as crossing “Drake Lake” – Andrea just continued to bless the weather Gods...

For three days, all we saw was rolling waves, albatrosses and petrels (similar to large seagulls). Some of the albatrosses were huge, with wingspans reaching up to 10 feet.

The bad news is that “flat” and “calm” apparently have different meanings. Although we had very “calm” seas, that still meant 2-3 metre swells – not much compared to what it could have been but still significant for those prone to sea-sickness.

Andrea experienced first hand the old saying “…sea-sickness never killed anyone, but it sure makes you wish that it would!” While keeping up our rotating 3 hours on and 6 hours off sailing rotation for the entire three days, Andrea was relegated to Sprite, crackers, and her new best friend – “The Little Green Bucket”. For some reason, I was no longer her “best friend” but rather the %$#&*^ that organized this trip...