Days 14 to 16
Dec 2, 2022
Another rough night of rocking and tossing. Couple of those swells even threw us out of our bunk beds in the middle of the night. It felt a lot rougher on the way back up north compared to sailing down south. The water was crashing up against the windows all night long as it kept getting rougher and rougher. This felt very different. Instead of rocking sideways like it was on the way down, we were climbing the waves as they were pushing us back. Tough night to sleep!
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In the morning the front of the ship was not even visible due to the heavy mist, but you could not miss the ship being tossed up 15-20 ft up in the air as we navigated the Drake Passage. It was basically a slow day, with a few lectures on planktons, formation of waves and Antarctica geopolitics.
Did you know that babies were born on Antarctica? Unfortunately, they are not citizens of Antarctica, rather citizens of their home countries, mostly Argentina or Chile in this case
We heard from one of the crew that the post office at Port Lockroy from where we had mailed out our postcards had just been buried in snow and required the British navy to come and dig them out.
The rest of the day was just social time with our fellow shipmates. We were able to set up for a movie night in one of the smaller lecture rooms. Was a pleasant change of pace rom the daily buzz of activities. However, the rocking of the ship was still extremely violent, and it went on all through the night.
Dec 3, 2022
As the day broke, the ship was making its way northwards in seas with swells up to six meters. The contrast between those who enjoyed it, and those who just grimly held on to survive, could not have been starker. This really is the notorious Drake Passage experience. With the spray from the bow crashing against the bridge lookout windows, all the way up on Deck 7 it was a horrendous day to be honest. The crew called it the ‘Drake shake’. The captain made the call to shut the outer doors, so that nobody ventured out
even by mistake.
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It was time to return our muck boots. By early evening the conditions started to ease as we crossed into the Beagle channel, and we were allowed to step out. The evening was our chance to reflect on the entire journey as the captain, his crew, the expedition staff and us toasted to a glass of champagne.
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As we officially entered Argentinian waters at around 9pm, the swells died down and in another 4-5 hours we were expected to make port in the middle of the night, which was a full 8 hours ahead of schedule. The ship had turned on the after burners to get us off the Drake passage as quickly as they could to get ahead of some really bad weather they were expecting. If you must know why they did that, it was due to a rogue wave that hit another cruise line ship (not an expedition ship like ours, so much bigger) earlier that day breaking windows and causing some serious harm.
Dec 4, 2022
We were up at 6AM for our final meal on this amazing ship. Our bags were taken down by the crew and as we disembarked the entire expedition staff was waiting for us to bid us goodbye. The last two
