The choppy seas of the Drake Passage. You don't appreciate the wave action from a broad photo of the ocean. But you do standing up on the bridge, watching time, after time, after time, as the boat rocks over a swell and then dives down into the next wave, which then comes crashing over the bow. At times, the spray flies high enough to hit the windshield of the bridge. This is when in this journal you should remember, or look back at, the picture of the Ioffe at dock in Ushuaia (February 23), and note how high the deck, and the bridge, sit above the water level when at rest.
There was then the formal account settlement time. We charged the remaining expenses, and gratuities, to the credit card. Gratuities are all combined into a single pool, and divided up evenly among all 60 of the crew and staff. So the person who cleans our rooms, the person in the engine room, Tanya the waitress, all get as much of the gratuity as the captain or the expedition leader. I like that…. They all deserve it.
Attended David McGonigal’s review of the trip. It was interesting to hear the recap. He used some of our pictures in his presentation. Then Phil showed the photo CD that he had put together from our collected contributions. Excellent – everyone wants a copy!
The one major planned event of the day was our approach to Cape Horn. It is a symbolic sight to witness, a location that has proven so noteworthy, and treacherous, to ships down throughout history. The Cape is owned by Chile, and they have become increasingly protective of it in recent years. They have a couple of families living there whose job it is to keep watch. They are discouraging landing on Cape Horn (actually, a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing to do) by charging $1000 per person in landing rights! And they are enforcing their 12 mile territorial limits around the Horn, or at least are trying to. More to this story in a moment.
At about 3 pm, we are approaching Cape Horn, and most of the ship’s population is up in the Bridge to witness it. I think that this was the most crowded on the Bridge of any time during the entire trip… perhaps 100 people are in there. Unfortunately, the viewing is very poor, with fog cutting the visibility significantly. We reach the 12 mile limit, and can see nothing. At this point, David and the Captain discuss the situation, and decide to cross the 12-mile boundary and approach closer, to see if we can get a view. If we are detected, we will be challenged and turned away, but their sense on their last several passes of the Cape was that the radars were not working well, because the level of detection had seemed to be dramatically reduced. So, the decision is to proceed, and if we are contacted by radio, to not answer immediately. The level of drama suddenly rose on what had otherwise been just a long uneventful day crossing the Drake! We all half wonder whether we were asking for some shots across the bow! We proceed slowly but steadily in toward the Cape, still invisible. When we get to about 9 miles out, we start to make out some islands, but they are not the Cape. We continue. At 7 miles out, we can finally make out the island that is Cape Horn through the fog. It might have been around then that the radio came to life with the equivalent of a “Who goes there?” We continue on until about 5 miles, at which time we answer, say “Sorry”, and agree to turn around. At this point we get a pretty good view of the Cape, although to be honest, it looks like just an ordinary island. We snap pictures knowing that it is significant, but realizing that the pictures will never look like anything special. At this point we turn east, and officially cross from the South Pacific to the South Atlantic, that making 3 oceans (including the Southern Ocean) that we have been in today.
Attended David McGonigal’s review of the trip. It was interesting to hear the recap. He used some of our pictures in his presentation. Then Phil showed the photo CD that he had put together from our collected contributions. Excellent – everyone wants a copy!
The one major planned event of the day was our approach to Cape Horn. It is a symbolic sight to witness, a location that has proven so noteworthy, and treacherous, to ships down throughout history. The Cape is owned by Chile, and they have become increasingly protective of it in recent years. They have a couple of families living there whose job it is to keep watch. They are discouraging landing on Cape Horn (actually, a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing to do) by charging $1000 per person in landing rights! And they are enforcing their 12 mile territorial limits around the Horn, or at least are trying to. More to this story in a moment.
At about 3 pm, we are approaching Cape Horn, and most of the ship’s population is up in the Bridge to witness it. I think that this was the most crowded on the Bridge of any time during the entire trip… perhaps 100 people are in there. Unfortunately, the viewing is very poor, with fog cutting the visibility significantly. We reach the 12 mile limit, and can see nothing. At this point, David and the Captain discuss the situation, and decide to cross the 12-mile boundary and approach closer, to see if we can get a view. If we are detected, we will be challenged and turned away, but their sense on their last several passes of the Cape was that the radars were not working well, because the level of detection had seemed to be dramatically reduced. So, the decision is to proceed, and if we are contacted by radio, to not answer immediately. The level of drama suddenly rose on what had otherwise been just a long uneventful day crossing the Drake! We all half wonder whether we were asking for some shots across the bow! We proceed slowly but steadily in toward the Cape, still invisible. When we get to about 9 miles out, we start to make out some islands, but they are not the Cape. We continue. At 7 miles out, we can finally make out the island that is Cape Horn through the fog. It might have been around then that the radio came to life with the equivalent of a “Who goes there?” We continue on until about 5 miles, at which time we answer, say “Sorry”, and agree to turn around. At this point we get a pretty good view of the Cape, although to be honest, it looks like just an ordinary island. We snap pictures knowing that it is significant, but realizing that the pictures will never look like anything special. At this point we turn east, and officially cross from the South Pacific to the South Atlantic, that making 3 oceans (including the Southern Ocean) that we have been in today.
A big crowd gathers on the bridge, to witness our next adventure -- a stealthy approach into Chilean territorial waters for a view of Cape Horn.
This was the best we could do -- a grey, foggy view of the Cape. This spot marks a particularly notorious section of sea, storms often making these waters treacherous, and giving it the name of the "Sailors Graveyard". Until the completion of the Panama Canal, this was the required route for ships traveling between the east and west coasts of the Americas. The view we got of this famous island this day was pretty average. But its significance was interesting, and the experience of getting to it was fun and exciting!
At 4 pm, we have tea time, followed by a formal ship tour…. The bridge (which we were quite familiar with by now), the Mud Room (again quite familiar with this, but learn some interesting things here), and the Engine Room below deck. We learn that the Ioffe and Vavilov were built as a pair for testing sonar and hi/low frequency sound waves in the ocean. (As mentioned before, cold-war spying on submarines was probably a key motivation for this scientific work.) They were designed in Leningrad, built in Finland. The ships today are commissioned for tours 4 months of the year in Antarctica, and 4 months of the year in the Arctic during their summer. The 4 months in between are used for transit from one to the other, with a stop in Leningrad for annual preventative maintenance. While in transit, the ships are filled with scientists who do pure science experiments in the oceans along the way. A very interesting point: The ship was built around the Mud Room, of all things! That is where the antennae and receivers are lowered into the water under the ship. There is a large well-like structure in the middle of the room (we’d always just ignored it as we concentrated on boots and lifejackets!) through which these are lowered. The ship has 2 engines, although it generally operates on just one. It can get 14 knots on 18000 gallons of fuel per day. By kicking in the 2nd engine, could get up to 15 knots, and consume twice the fuel. (Not sure why that is, but it is clear it is not worth using the second engine under normal conditions.)
On the ship's tour, we are given the background of the "Mud Room". Very familiar with it by now as the spot where we get dressed for our excursions, we are fascinated to learn that this was constructed as the heart of the original sonar-based functions of the ship.
Joan, in the mud room, in front of one of many rows of life jackets that are kept here.
One of the ship's two engines.
Engine Control Room.
As the afternoon wears on, the weather begins to get worse, and so do the seas. We are still moving easterly, working our way toward the mouth of the Beagle Channel, but apparently it is still a long ways away. It starts to rain, and we pick up 40 mph winds which whip up the seas into whitecaps, blowing spray from the top of waves, and creating 10-15 foot swells. This is probably more the norm for the Drake, and we are just lucky that we’ve avoided it until almost the end.
Dinner time comes, the time when we were to have the special “Captain’s Dinner” – a time when we were to show our appreciation to him for all of his efforts on this trip. But the weather has worsened still, and he can do no more than put in a short appearance for a bit of recognition, and then must go back where he is needed on the Bridge. After dinner, we go up to the Bridge to see what is going on. There we witness the heaviest weather conditions of the entire trip. We seem to have hit a storm cell, and things have gotten really violent. We are getting winds of 70 mph, just under hurricane force. We are still working our way toward the Beagle Channel, and are quite exposed, although the proximity to land here is probably keeping the wave size down from what would have been more out in the center of the Drake under these conditions. Still, this is awesome. On the Beaufort scale of wind strength, a scale that runs from 0 to 12, we are experiencing force 11 winds. Swells are now 15-20 feet. When the waves hit the bow just right, they break into a white spray that covers the fore deck. On a few occasions, the spray blows high enough to hit the windows of the bridge, temporarily obliterating our view up here 90 feet above the water level. The one positive factor is that we are heading straight into the wind and the waves, so there is little side to side motion, and no seasickness, even for Joan. She’s actually enjoying the experience. At one point I decide to go outside of the enclosed bridge to feel the full force of the winds, and it is quite incredible. The wind whips at my clothing, the rain stings as it hits my face. I must keep firm grasp of the railing to stay stable. I can handle that only for a few moments, and then retreat to the protected bridge again. The conditions continue this way for about an hour, and then begin to subside, and soon we find our way into the Beagle Channel, and calm waters. But that bit of adrenaline rush at the end is something that we will remember.
(This storm on the open seas has indeed proven to be one of the strongest lasting memories of this trip, certainly of our time on the Drake. A couple of other points not captured in the original journal. First was the time of day. By the time the storm was at its greatest fury, it was late in the evening, well after dark. Witnessing such rough seas in the true blackness of night really added to the overall emotional experience of the event. On the other hand, it may have prevented us from seeing the full violence of the ocean, and perhaps keeping us from being completely terrified! The second point to note: After we arrived back in Ushuaia the next day, we learned that during the storm, ships were ordered to stay in port or in the channel, and were not allowed to leave for open waters. That was some additional calibration on how severe that storm was.)
We go down to the computer and burn a final CD with the remainder of the pictures we’ve taken on the trip, and then head back to the cabin to pack. We get our two big duffel bags packed, and leave them outside our door as instructed, as they will be coming by around 6 am to pick them up. We go to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment