Almost at Desolation Island

We left Ushuaia on the morning of Tuesday, January 16th, sailing our way through the Drake’s Passage, famously the most dangerously rough waters in the whole world. People say the Drake’s Passage has two faces: the Drake Lake or the Drake Hell. It looks like we discovered a third: the Drake’s Paradise! The weather and the waters were awesome, perfect wind, steady sailing, even at 9 or 11 knots, beautiful sunny weather, lots of sightings of birds, dolphins and even a couple of whales. The crew – surprise – is amazing. We had lectures on sailing, wildlife in the Antarctic and lots of chances to practice our sailing skills.I personally loved the good weather and not as moody as expected seas: I took seasickness pills for the first 2 days, then gave up on them and all is well. When I’m not spending my time on watches (I’m the watch leader of the Red Watch btw – go Red Watch!), eating or sleeping, I like to pick on the books Bark Europa has plenty of in its beautiful library. My favorite is the almanac of Antarctic sea life. I’ve learned about all kinds of birds, and spotted and recorded them in the sighting book with time and date. It’s surprising to learn that the largest bird of the Drake has a 3.5meters wingspan, and the smallest maybe somewhere around 40cm.We got plenty of friendly visits from the curious hourglass dolphins and a few Minke Whales. At 8PM local time today, the Red Watch was “saved by the bell” – watches are over, as we are approaching land. While the enthusiasts of going aloft (!) are up there furling the sails, I’m writing these notes and looking forward to tomorrow morning, when we plan to have our first landing on the Desolation Island, and hence possibly our first sighting of a penguin! I’ve learned that the Emperor penguins are actually present much more inland, and most likely we will not see them. We’d have better chances of seeing rockhoppers, chinstrap or king penguins – woohoo!! We had a thorough instruction on how to approach Antarctica, and protect the fragile wildlife balance on this remote continent. We went through a 1h training and had to vacuum clean all our clothes, shoes, bags, pockets, camera bags – everything! The idea is that we should not bring anything to Antarctica – just as we should not take anything from Antarctica: yep – no “souvenirs” – so much for my sneaky hope to kidnap a penguin as a pet. We have multiple scheduled landing spots, which our Captain Erik and Mate Janke need to carefully orchestrate with all the other ships around, in order to minimize stress to the ecosystem. Looking forward to tomorrow! All the best, Cristina & Brad