Drake’s Passage has the reputation for being one of the worst, if not “the worst”, stretches of water in the seagoing world. It has to do with a number of factors. The water close in on the Antarctic continent circles in a counter clockwise direction. But the water further offshore, circulates the other way, due to prevailing winds. Also, the oceans around Antarctica are wide areas with the exception of the area between Cape Horn and Tierra Del Fuego and the Antarctic Peninsula, which is a narrow area and forces water through a much smaller space. Add to that the fact that the cold Antarctic meets the warm southern oceans and the Pacific meets the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and throw in icebergs floating north from Antarctica and Drake’s Passage can be hell on board a ship.

According to our ship’s crew and guides, our trip (about 36 hours) across Drake’s Passage was one of the nicest they ever experienced.

The first picture is just one of the water – I was really impressed with the shade of blue. Also, our ship’s crew told us that this was “flat water”, at least by Drake’s Passage standards.

The second picture in the Passage was what we expect was the Polar Front or the Antarctic Convergence. The convergence is the boundary where the sub-Antarctic water meets the warmer water of the southern oceans. The line moves back and forth between 50 degrees and 60 degrees south latitude and can only be determined for certain by measuring the water temperature. The water temperature can change 5 degrees C over a distance of only a few miles or a few tens of miles. The convergence is usually an area of heavy fog and you can see that coming in the second photo.

You can see the change in color when we got into the Antarctic by looking at the third photo. It was a black and white world much of the time down there. Welcome to summer time in the Antarctic.