MS National Geographic Explorer
Drake Passage, Cape Horn, and Ushuaia
Monday-Tuesday, January 18-19, 2010

    The last two days have been spent in the open sea – the dreaded Drake Passage – on our way back to Patagonia and in particular, Ushuaia. We cruised through rather bleak weather on Monday, with some wind and fog. Despite our expectations of a rough passage, it was rather calm, far from glassy seas, but manageable. There was a short time when the sun peaked through the fog and I was able to snap a photo of a cape petrel flying over the churned water from our twin screws.

    The day was filled with talks given by the staff, concentrating on more entertaining aspects of Antarctica. I welcomed the “down time” since it gave me time to sort, vett, and do initial processing on some of my photos. I took waaaay too many images on this first half of the expedition, but it is hard not to. I snapped about 13,000 frames so far. Lots of shots are insurance images with slight differences in exposure, composition, and point-of-view. I’ve managed to scan through and whittle the number of images down to about 4000 and will be able to reduce that number a lot more with careful comparisons of similar images.

    Tuesday we cruised up and around Cape Horn. There was a concentration of black-browed albatrosses near the cape as well as our first glimpse of real plants in quite a while. We rounded the cape and entered the Beagle Channel. Shortly thereafter, we took on our Argentinean pilot for our final few hours of travel up the Beagle Channel into Ushuaia.

    During these last few hours, we had the Captain’s farewell cocktail party and dinner. It is the time when the captain and expedition leader do a final recap of the expedition. We have travelled approximately 2470 nautical miles.

    Early tomorrow morning, I say goodbye to all of my fellow guests and many of the staff. The exiting staff members have been on duty for many trips and will now take four or five weeks off to visit home. I’ll be here to meet the newbie guests that will arrive Wednesday evening. It will be interesting to watch as the staff and crew prepare the ship between 8 am when the current passengers leave and 5 pm when the new guests arrive. In that time, all the guest rooms have to be cleaned and prepared, the guests’ names placed on the doors, the ship is completely re-provisioned, guest luggage is delivered from the airport and distributed to the cabins to await the arrival of the guests themselves.

    Tomorrow evening, we begin our journey back to the White Continent, commencing with another two days in the Drake. I hope to spend a little time in the Drake planning what photographic subjects that I want to concentrate on. Of course, a lot depends on the sites that we visit and the weather. We will have a new expedition leader, Bud. I know Bud and like how he runs an expedition, so I have high expectations.