Drake Passage first crossing

Having had the stop at the Falkland Islands cancelled we expected we might have a rough passage though this strait between Terra del Fuego at the tip of South America in Argentina.  In fact we had a following wind and very moderate seas with some pitching and rolling of the ship. 

On board there have been some excellent talks. Dr Peter Carey - a zoologist who lives in Christchurch New Zealand and Dr Craig Franklin also a zoologist on faculty at the University of Queensland have been the leaders of a group of four speakers. These two are co-authors of a book “Antarctic Cruising Guide”.  We have had several lectures on the ecology, wild life, glaciers, photography, climate etc. If one misses a lecture because for example having an intermediate bridge lesson or playing duplicate bridge one can watch it later on the TV in ones cabin .

Additional lectures have been on Scott of the Antarctic - the story of Scott who reached the South Pole three weeks after Amundsen and then perished on the way back to the base camp.

The first land fall in Antarctica has been Elephant Island. This is where members of the 1914 Shackleton expedition spent about a year after their ship the Endurance had been crushed in the ice. Shackleton and some of the expedition then managed to row/sail to South Georgia and the rest of the crew were then rescued from Elephant Island. 

When you see Elephant Island the first time you realise what a large piece of land it is. On a map ones imagination is that it is just a small island. It is however huge and mountainous with very small numbers of places to land.