Dreaded Drake passage

Date: 15th Jan - 16th Jan 2011

When we woke up we get a last glance at the south shetland islands and the ship was already in open waters. Everybody were preparing for the dreaded Drake passage with their anti-sickness patches and pills. It turned out that Sir Drake was not angry at our expedition and we had an absolutely great sail through the Drake passage for almost 2 days. The sea was very calm and all our preparations went down the drain. The last chance to encounter some adventure before the end of the trip did not materialize.

On the first day at sea back to Ushuaia, we had the usual 4 talks planned for the day - 1 related to the history of antarctic treaty and the other 3 on birds and marine mammals. We conveniently skipped all of them and caught up on some movies and books which we had planned for the trip. The weather outside was quite cloudy with calm waters. In the evening we decided to head to the bar for some happy hour where Carlos (our bartender) was pouring "screwdriver" cocktail as the special for the evening. The bar is usually filled with people with many of them sipping on beers or wine. DJ Weddell was also there spinning brazilian music off his iPod. At dinner we were given hints about the program for the next day which is going to be our last day at sea.

We skipped breakfast in the morning and marched our way to the talks directly at 10am. Jamie was giving a presentation on climate change. It was quite interesting to see some of the myths/facts about climate change and its effect on the polar regions. This presentation was followed by a tour of the ship that includes the bridge where the captain controls the ship, the engine room and the mud room. It was quite fascinating to see the internals of a big ship like the Akademik Ioffe. This is a ship that was built in 1989 for research purposes. It can carry fuel for 20,000 nautical miles and 400 tones of fresh water. There is a team of 14 russian crew members who manage the ship in 4-hr shifts. The captain seems very friendly and we are going to have a special dinner with him this evening.

Cape Horn is the chilean tip of south america which is notorious for sinking many of the ships in the early 1900s. Due to calm open sea we were back at the tip of south america early in the afternoon. The captain decided to take us close to Cape Horn before heading to Ushuaia via the Beagle channel. We arrived in Ushuaia at around 9am after breakfast and Quark had arranged to drop off our luggage at their conveniently located luggage room near downtown. They had also confirmed our outgoing flights to Buenos Aires and collected boarding passes from Aerolineas Argentinas.

Here is a summary of the trip:

Total: 3350 nautical miles

Furthest south: 63 deg 31.3s

63 species of birds

15 marine mammals

1 land mammal