Crossing the Drake

When you stand at the Albatross Monument and face south you are looking at the Antarctic Ocean . Turn your head to the left and this is the Atlantic Ocean, turn your head right and you are now looking at the Pacific Ocean.

This small spot is where these 3 mighty oceans  meet with their different temperatures and wave patterns. This creates a bubbling convergence of water. (Now a quick meteorlogical lesson). The wind around Antarctica has "infinite fetch". Fetch is the distance wind travels without hitting land. The land slows and disrupts the wind. Hence the fetch of the wind crossing the Atlantic and hitting Cornwall is the width of the Atlantic. The wind around Antarctica just keeps going round and round these three oceans without landfall. Add this wind to the sea convergence and it can create a cauldron of waves that are huge and moving in many and varied directions. Ships are tossed, turned and thrown around this bubbling mass. Those of a certain age will remember morning assembly at school. There was a hymn that included the line "for those in peril on the sea". This was going round and round in my head as we left the shelter of the coast and begun the 48 hour race across the Drake Passage.

There are two extreme versions of the Drake, the Drake Lake - complete calm and the the Drake Shake - chaos.
Incredibly, our crossing was pretty close to the Lake. We powered our way across through a sea that was relatively calm and made up the time lost refuelling and visiting Cape Horn.

After 2 days we saw land and would soon have our first encounter with Antarcitica. Firstly, at the Islands just north of the continent, The South Shetland Islands, and then onto the continent itself.


My dear reader, you have waded through pages of rambling. Next, I will finally tell you about the Frozen Continent at the base of the globe.

No pictures of the Sea , so here is your first penguin pic.