MS National Geographic Endeavour
Drake Passage
Tuesday, January 27, 2009

    As usual, I was up early. This morning, however, there were not many others about. We are in the Drake Passage, and it is apparently considered rough. I’m not bothered by the ride, but the ship is pitching rather significantly and a lot of passengers are not doing well. The list of troubled passengers included both staff photographers. Tim Laman says he has always been susceptible to motion sickness, but has dosed himself and seems okay so far. This is Bob’s last of three consecutive tours this season and he says the pitching is among the worst of the passages.

    The sun is out and the sea is blue and not angry, but we have a lots of white caps, and some pretty big rolling waves that we are riding over. The ship is crashing through the peaks throwing spray over the bow. We don’t have a following of seabirds, but hopefully they will appear as we approach Cape Horn. From Cape Horn we are to sail to the northeast to reenter the Beagle Channel on our way to Ushuaia. Once closer to land, the seas should become calmer which will make trying to capture images of the flying birds from the desk of the ship easier, but all that is not until tomorrow.

    The rest of today provided time for those of us who can stare at a computer screen in the heavily pitching ship to start vetting our thousands of images trying to find the gems.