Tag: Polar

What About Crossing the Drake Passage?

“Crossing the Drake passage is the price of entry for going to the Antarctic. The peace and serenity of the Antarctic is matched by the turbulence and drama of the Drake. They are two sides of the same coin: you don’t get one without the other. The conditions of the Drake are somewhere between bad and terrifying, depending on the weather gods, But worth every moment.” –Lyndon File, G Adventures

Apparently, one of the most challenging aspects of getting to Antarctica is crossing the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage has been called “Drake Lake” and “Drake Shake.“ The Drake Passage extends into the Southern Ocean and is the confluence between the southwestern Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean which includes Cape Horn in South America and the South Shetland Islands. It is approximately 625 miles which should take us about two days to cross. Probably the more scary part about the trip is packing. What to bring?

Planning an Antarctica Adventure

“If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.”
― Andrew Denton

We started our planning almost a year ago. For us, water is a continuous theme. San Clemente, Costa Rica, Prince Edward Island, the Algarve Region in Portugal, the Galápagos Islands, Iceland……You get the idea! After a lot of thought, we decided that our next adventure should be to one of the most remote places on earth that also involves a lot of water travel…..Antarctica. Where to start?

Once we had settled on a location for our adventure, we turned to how we would actually get there. Flying to Patagonia sounded like the most logical option, but that only took us as far south as South America. How should we go from Patagonia to Antarctica? The best option is really on a ship, but which one? We could go on a large cruise ship, but would be limited in our ability to explore Antarctica. We decided to use an expedition cruise line which lead us to Silversea Expeditions. We found that the Silver Explorer would best meet our needs and trip timing, which would be December 2019.