What is the Drake Passage?

The 500 miles between Cape Horn and Livingston Island (part of the Shetland Islands) is the shortest distance from Antarctica to another landmass. The powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current squeezes water through this small gap towards the Scotia Sea and South Atlantic Ocean, and as you cross over to Antarctica, you’re traversing this current at right angles.  This is the Drake Passage
The weather in the Passage can be extremely unpredictable throughout the season and no two crossing are the same. We don’t set sail blindly however, there are now  accurate forecasting systems used to predict what’s coming, and to allow us to time our crossings.

Some weather forecasting links we use

WINDY – https://www.windy.com/
PASSAGE WEATHER https://www.passageweather.com/

A Perfect Crossing

Of course sometimes we do run into exceptionally incredibly calm conditions – this passage is one of those times.  We woke this morning to a brilliant sunrise and a glass like ocean.  This is of course a rare event and its more likely that we will encounter rough to very rough conditions  – in fact 2 out of 3 passages will experience some form of bad weather so we take what we can get and count our blessings!