Drake’s Passage
February 1st, 2026
The ship left Ushuaia last night to take us through Drake’s Passage . The passage is known for its rough seas caused by the high winds and ocean currents being funneled through the area between Argentina and the Antarctic peninsula.
There are three levels used to describe the roughness of Drake’s Passage.
Drake Lake - Waters are calm
Drake Shake - Waters have 30-40 foot waves.
Drake Dragon - Extreme condition with 40 plus waves.
Waters were calm when we left port last night. However, I was awoken in the night when we hit the passage. We were defiantly experiencing Drake Shake. But our ship is pretty large, so we were not “shaken” too bad. It was just enough to make it difficult to walk around the ship and not look like a drunken sailor.
The ships captain has experience the passage many times. He also has a compliment of “ice” experts to assist when we get close to Antarctica. The outer walkways were closed off and all the pools were drained to prepare for this crossing.
View of Drakes passage from the Vines Bar window.
We got up early to see some of the glaciers along the way from our balcony. The weather is much cooler here. Good thing we packed for cold weather!
The ship still has plenty of presentations for us to attend. This is very helpful for us to see what to experience when we arrive.
Glaciers and Geology of Antartica (Naturalist)
Life of Penguins (Naturalist)
The Heroic Age of Antartica Exploration (Enrichment)
The Magic Migration (Naturalist)
They also have other programs to keep us entertained. We went to the ABBA Hour with DJ Jaro in Skywalker Nightclub in the back of the ship. We had an hour of ABBA music to dance to. It was interesting trying to dance. The whole floor of people dancing would move from one side of the floor to the other as the ship rocked. Sandy kept one hand on the railing next to her while she danced to keep her balance. I think we were doing the Drake Shake!
We are going to bed early, so we can wake up early to possibly see whale pods.
