Day Two - 5th December - The Drake Passage

The Crossing
For most people, visiting Antarctica involves a sea crossing. The shortest such crossing is from Ushuaia to the Antarctic Peninsula, but even this is over 600 miles (the next shortest is more than twice that distance) and it takes two full days.

Cape Horn

This crossing, sailing south past Cape Horn into the Drake Passage, can be one of the roughest in the world and, even though we knew the Ioffe to be one of the most stable expedition cruise ships currently in operation, Louise and I were prepared for the worst.

Life on board
A "wake up call" over the ship's public address system (which has a speaker in every cabin) heralded the beginning of our first full day at sea and, although the ship was rolling gently, a quick look out of our cabin window revealed a relatively calm sea.

Our cabin, on the port side of the ship, was warm and comfortable with a single bed, a sofa bed, plenty of drawers and cupboards for storage (all with secure latches, in case of rough weather), a writing desk and bookcase, a refrigerator and an en suite shower and WC.

Some of the expedition staff on board the Ioffe

However, expedition cruises are not to be squandered sitting in your cabin when there is a full programme of talks given by the expert expedition staff to attend and the chance to enjoy the birds and other wildlife of the Southern Ocean.

The talks are aimed at giving passengers an insight into what it is that they are about to experience in order that they can get as much as possible out of the trip and they are delivered by the ship's expedition staff, all of whom are very experienced in working in the polar regions, with many being leading experts in their fields.

On the first full day at sea the talks were about the Birds of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton's legendary expedition of 1914/15, Penguins, and Photography in the Antarctic.

The Zodiac

The Wildlife
Seabirds' mastery of their environment epitomises the Southern Ocean, perhaps none more so than the albatrosses. During the course of the day we saw four species of albatross, including several Wandering Albatross, the longest-winged of all birds with a wingspan of almost 12 feet.

At the other extreme we also saw Wilson's Storm-Petrels, with a much more modest wingspan of 13-16". All of the seabirds of the Southern Ocean, however, are superbly adapted to flying with as little physical effort as possible by riding the air currents.

Late in the afternoon we saw our first whales, two Humpbacks, which appeared at the surface close to the ship on its starboard side. Impressively large, sadly, they disappeared as quickly as they had surfaced, and made off at right angles to our course. Although early in the season, we hoped that we would see others.

Day 3 - First icebergs and first sighting of Antarctica »