Drake’s Passage
No land today, all day, as the Endeavour heads north through the Drake Passage. The swells roll across the sea like the rippling of thick muscles across the back of a gigantic and sometimes fierce animal, but there is no anger today. No, none at all, rather there is a sort of lazy peacefulness across the Southern Ocean as we voyage from one continent to the next. In a reflective sense we have also traveled from one century to the next. During much of the 20th century adventurous people made the passage to Antarctica to harvest the great whales, some two million whales including blues, fins, rights and humpbacks. In the photo my dive buddy Stacey Buckelew is observing the coffee table sized shoulder blade of a whale that was butchered on a nearby beach perhaps 75 years ago. It does seem ironic that in the 21st century adventurous people make the passage to this most remote continent with the intention of encountering these same whales and yes, they are here, but the bones of the butchered still outnumber the blows of the living, at least for now. And now it is the 21st century and I think and more I hope that this will be a century for Nature. Well, here at least, so far so good.
No land today, all day, as the Endeavour heads north through the Drake Passage. The swells roll across the sea like the rippling of thick muscles across the back of a gigantic and sometimes fierce animal, but there is no anger today. No, none at all, rather there is a sort of lazy peacefulness across the Southern Ocean as we voyage from one continent to the next. In a reflective sense we have also traveled from one century to the next. During much of the 20th century adventurous people made the passage to Antarctica to harvest the great whales, some two million whales including blues, fins, rights and humpbacks. In the photo my dive buddy Stacey Buckelew is observing the coffee table sized shoulder blade of a whale that was butchered on a nearby beach perhaps 75 years ago. It does seem ironic that in the 21st century adventurous people make the passage to this most remote continent with the intention of encountering these same whales and yes, they are here, but the bones of the butchered still outnumber the blows of the living, at least for now. And now it is the 21st century and I think and more I hope that this will be a century for Nature. Well, here at least, so far so good.
