MS National Geographic Explorer
At Sea in the Drake Passage
Tuesday, February 8, 2011

    The day is nearing an end. This has been our first full day in the Drake Passage on our way from Ushuaia, Argentina, to the Antarctic Peninsula. It feels like I'm coming home. Since my first visit to Antarctica just two years ago, I have felt the southern continent of ice pulling me back, again and again. The grandeur, isolation, and stark beauty of this magnificent continent and the incredible fortitude of the wildlife inhabitants continuously summon me like a siren's song.

    These, my fourth and fifth visits to Antarctica, began with a flight from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile, where I overnighted at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The next morning saw another three and a half air hours on a flight from Santiago to Ushuaia, the city at the tip of Argentina. I boarded the MS National Geographic Explorer, a ship that has come to feel like a second home to me, in the afternoon and we launched down the Beagle Channel. It still sends chills up and down my spine in anticipation of the sights and adventures to come.

    The northern part of the Drake was a bit turbulent. Not bad, maybe a three on a scale of 1 to 10. I've certainly experienced better and worse. The motion was mainly a rolling tendency, which is well stabilized by NG Explorer. As I have said before, I have not shown a tendency to seasickness, but I am careful to knock on wood, because susceptibility could be hiding, waiting to reveal itself without warning. As today progressed, the seas have become more calm.

    A few of the incredible albatrosses and petrels have soared in the updrafts alongside and behind the ship. The winds are a little light, so there have been fewer flying visitors so far; less that I have experienced before. That doesn't take away anything from the wonder and envy I experience when viewing these magnificent creatures that can effortlessly glide along with the ship, soaring with the lift generated by their huge wings.

    I've just returned to my cabin after spending some time alone at the bow of the ship surrounded only by sea to the horizon in every direction. Standing there, I experience an incredible mixture of emotions. On one hand I feel that I am the master of the world spread out around me, and at the same time I feel like such an insignificant speck in this vast environment. Starring at the apparently empty surface of the sea, I remember the unfathomable amount of biomass that fills these waters just a few meters under my feet, but hidden from my view.

    Tomorrow morning, we are scheduled to make landfall in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. I can hardly contain my excitement, even after three previous visits. I am sure that my dreams tonight will be of ice, penguins, seals, whales, and petrels.