At sea - The Drake Passage
Today we continued our journey south. It has been a long journey from our homes to Santiago, Chile, and then on to Ushuaia, Argentina, where we boarded the National Geographic Explorer yesterday evening. We then sailed out through the Beagle Channel and into the Drake Passage – the body of water that separates South America from Antarctica. Gradually we are reaching our destination of the white continent. The length of the journey serves to reinforce the remoteness of our goal.
Today we have been fortunate that the Drake Passage was kind to us and the seas were moderate. This body of water is fully exposed to weather from any direction, usually from the west, and has a bad reputation for making even experienced seafarers uncomfortable.
At these latitudes it is possible to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean uninterrupted by any landmass. Indeed, several of the albatross species we saw today are more than capable of doing so. In addition to these ocean wanderers we encountered a variety of other petrel species, several of which were more southerly species that breed only in Antarctica such as the Antarctic fulmar (pictured above).
Throughout the day, the air and sea temperatures dropped, further evidence of our approach to our ice-bound destination. Our good progress today means that we should be able to see land when we awake and we may make our first landing tomorrow morning.
We head to our beds in anticipation of our arrival in Antarctica.
