After our final landing it was time to head north to Argentina over the ‘Dreaded Drake’. This is the Drake Passage, a notoriously rough stretch of water where two oceanic currents clash from opposing directions. Those who cross it often refer to having had the ‘Drake Shake’, or the ‘Drake Lake’.
Last year, on holiday we very definitely got the Drake Shake both ways but we’ve been fortunate this year and had two fairly good crossings. Nikki and Laura weren’t quite so enthusiastic preferring to ‘sleep it out’ in the safe haven of our cabin with the en-suite bathroom in easy reach (!) but I’ve really loved being back on a ship. We’ve had a bit of swell and the ship has been rolling a bit but generally it’s been smooth and it’s amazing to take in the vastness of the ocean.
Yesterday I spent most of the day pulling together photos for a presentation for the guests of the Vavilov. Metaphorically, this was us ‘singing for our supper’, as Peregrine was very kindly giving us a lift home after our original plans changed. In return, we offered to give the guests a unique insight to our, ‘Long, Hot Summer at Lockroy’, or so the title for the presentation went!
As you can imagine, between the four of us we had literally thousands of photos to choose from to support the presentation, but we tried to think of particular occasions which would give the guests a bit more insight about what we got up to over the summer months and came up with a few beauties. As we went back through the photos so many hilarious memories came flooding back! Photos included the fantastic sunset the night of our arrival, birthdays, Christmas, hideous meals we had cobbled together as well funny photos we had taken of us in all our gear for our clothing sponsors.
Today was our second full day on the Drake. We woke up to noticeably warmer (albeit wet) weather with just a little bit of swell. We also picked up a few albatrosses which are now following us but since it’s rainy and I’m always slightly paranoid about falling off the side of the ship (!) I haven’t ventured outside to fully investigate! By late morning we were off the coast of South America approaching Cape Horn. The swells got larger as I’m sure you’d expect and from the bridge we could see somewhat impressive great waves spraying over the bow.
At the 12 nautical mile point, Mette (from the expedition team), radioed the Chilean authorities for permission to approach beyond the standard closest distance. With her powers of persuasion, she received permission for us to approach to within 3 nautical miles of the Cape. It’s an impressive sight in itself but the jagged peaks of mountains jutting out just above sea level were almost more frightening and it’s easy to see how 30,000 sailors could have lost their lives at sea in these perilous waters.
Late this afternoon we arrived in the shelter of the Beagle Channel seeing South American land for the first time in four months. Woody led a final expedition recap for the guests in the panorama lounge followed by a ‘Best of’ photographic slideshow showcasing some of the guest’s best photographs from their 18-day trip to the Falklands, S. Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. It was strange watching the highlights of everyone’s trips and that combined with seeing the land engulfing us really did strike a chord. I started to absorb that our huge adventure was coming to it’s end L.
