Drake Passage - Day 1

December 12, 2011

DRAKE PASSAGE, INTERNATIONAL WATERS – Today has been a very exciting day – our first full day aboard the M/S Expedition!

First off, I managed to fall asleep last night pretty quickly. The waves were definitely there, but it wasn’t anything too bad. That said, at exactly 3:01am I woke up to a huge swell. The kind that sent all loose electronics flying across the room. Later on I found out that nearly everybody woke up at the exact same time. Our weather reports were predicting 3-4 meter swells coming into the Drake Passage, but this one and several others ended up clocking in at around 6 meters (19-20 feet). I eventually fell asleep again but have no idea how long it was before I did. When I woke up later on my GPS, converter, watch, and a few other things were scattered in corners all around the room due to the huge rocking motion of the ship. Turns out that at about 3am we came south of Cape Horn, and thus entered the Drake Passage and became subject to the massive force of the west-to-east waves that circle the entire Antarctic continent, south of the mainland continental shelves (South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand). This has more or less continued unabated for the entire day.

Luckily, I was expecting this, and came prepared despite never having been sea sick before. It is the worst crossing on earth, and so even if you never have been sea sick before, it is advised across the board to have some sort of medication. Thanks to Melissa, who did this exact trip last year, I bought some sea-bands that I put on after dinner on Day 1. They have worked perfectly – I have not needed to use any medication at all.

Throughout the day we have had several lectures – the first one was on the various different species of birds we expected to encounter. While I am not a bird-watcher myself, I still found the lecture interesting. That said, talking with Kevin, the “bird man,” was more interesting up on deck while actually looking out at them, as opposed to hearing his presentation with a powerpoint. There were a surprisingly large number of birds that came down with us. As he put it, they were mostly just hitching a ride. The wake of the ship stirs up all kinds of small organisms in the water, so they feed on that, and then the ship takes a huge amount of wind (we were at 35-40+ mph winds the entire time) that creates lift over the top of it. The birds then use that lift to glide along with us, instead of flapping their wings, thus requiring very little energy of them. As such, they very much “get a free ride” by following along with us, and there were several dozen birds with us all day. My favorite quote from Kevin’s presentation: “Everyone is a closet birder. It just takes the right bird to get you out of the closet!”

The second lecture was on the 1911 race for the South Pole. The race had been on for several years, and there were two primary players: Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott. In hindsight, the differences between the two were obvious. Amundsen was better prepared, more apt to flexibility and insight from his crew, and was determined to make it to the South Pole in the most efficient way possible. Scott, by contrast, was kind of an alpha-male British “hero,” who was loud and a leader, but didn’t as much know what he was doing and his mistakes were obvious. Amundsen had a better scout team in 1910, the year before, who were able to set up supply stations as far south as 83 degrees. Scott didn’t get to 80 degrees. Amundsen also found a closer landing site for his base camp and ship, a good 60 miles closer to the pole. These things add up! Finally, Amundsen’s team relied on sled dogs, which were proven to be the most efficient way of transportation on ice and snow. Scott never understood this advantage that dogs had, and used horses, which consume far more energy and are thus that much less efficient. Past the toughest part of their journey in 1911, each team slaughtered their animals in order to both conserve energy and use the meat to feed themselves. Amundsen slaughtered the weakest half of his team and used just one pack of dogs the rest of the journey. Scott slaughtered his entire group of horses, and then man-hauled the rest of the way to the pole. Which one do you think consumes more energy?

In the end, Amundsen reached the pole on December 14, 2011 – almost exactly 100 years ago. Scott eventually succeeded in reaching the pole, but was beaten badly, by around a month – he reached in January 2012. On the way back to base, Scott’s team ultimately got bogged down by weather and died of frostbite, while Amundsen got his team out safely to the rest of the world before the Antarctic winter set in. Overall – a very informative lecture that I enjoyed quite a bit!

Between the lectures we spent a significant amount of time outside on the 6^th floor, the top deck, looking out over the bow at the Drake. When we would get cold, we headed to the 5^th deck to the “bridge,” which is the navigational center of the ship, essentially the equivalent of an airplane’s cockpit. The captain and his officers work in the bridge, which also contains all kinds of GPS equipment that I am sure anybody who knows me, knows that I found very interesting. I synched it all up with my own handheld GPS to keep an eye on that sunset time and sunrise time, each changing as we headed south. At the end of the day sunset pushed back from 9:57 to 10:14pm.

While at the bridge, Howard, an American gentleman from the Washington D.C. area, Anthony, an Irishman living in Tasmania, Australia, and I spotted a Cuvier’s Beaked Whale, a very rare sight, and the first confirmed mammal sighting of the entire trip! The whale surfaced at 2:39pm, right in front of the ship, saw us, and then dived past us. It was traveling in our direction, and the entire encounter lasted about 3-4 seconds. By the time our cameras were shooting, it was already gone. Despite missing the photo, it was an incredible sight and very exciting to see something other than water and birds!

On that note, I am off to the polar bear bar, a fun little hangout on the 5^th deck, overlooking the rear of the ship with a nice 180-degree view. We continue south!