Today is one of two days on this voyage to Antarctica where there is no land in sight. For hundreds of miles in either direction the landscape is in motion. Sometimes the motion takes the shape of 30 ft. swells and frothy seas as the unencumbered winds squeeze between the southern tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula. Even at 600 miles wide the Drake Passage represents a pinch point that amplifies, wind, wave, and anxiety.
Despite the geography, physics, and lore, there are also moments when the Drake is quiet. It doesn’t happen too often but this was one of those days. From horizon to horizon the dividing line between sea and sky was a perfectly clean transition. It was almost as if the dreaded Drake had flat-lined.
Having experienced the antithesis of this only a week earlier the conditions for our return to Ushuaia could not have been more welcomed. The smooth seas offered plenty of time to reflect on a near perfect voyage in the comfort of a stable, beautiful ship.
