Drake Passage, 1/29/2022, National Geographic Endurance
Aboard the
National Geographic Endurance
Antarctica
With the Drake Passage, it seems you have a choice between windy or foggy. Today, we experienced calm conditions and fog. Light, northerly winds carried relatively mild air over the cold waters of the Southern Ocean, severely reducing visibility throughout the day. That said, we still observed light-mantled albatrosses, rockhopper penguins and various petrels and prions.
For as long as he can remember, Conor has always been preoccupied with the natural world, from the whales to the fungi. For most of his life he has been an islander: growing up in Cobh, Ireland and settling down in Tobermory in the Hebrides, Scotland...
We departed Puerto Natales very early to arrive on time for one of the most beautiful but narrow places we will cross on our way to Karukinka, the White Narrows. The Zodiacs were dropped. After the navigation team measured the appropriate current, National Geographic Explorer passed through while Peale’s dolphins played around the ship. The afternoon was a pleasant time to listen to more lectures and enjoy our final moments on board. Outside, the rain and the wind were blowing, so we took full advantage of the facilities on the ship. We enjoyed our day and relaxed a bit before our last wonderful day in Patagonia.
Can the weather get any better? March is mid-fall here, equivalent to October back home. It was still dark when we boarded buses for our full-day tour of southern Chile’s iconic Torres del Paine National Park. We drove north. A rosy glow at the skyline slowly transformed into golden light, casting slanted shadows as the sun rose over the hills to the east, illuminating the mountains in front of us. Some of us were on the panoramic tour, visiting key scenic lookouts and finishing at Rio Serrano for a traditional Patagonian asado, or barbecue. Whole lambs had been roasting over lenga wood fires all morning. The rest of us were on a slightly longer tour, with two lovely hikes breaking up the bus ride. (We still enjoyed the lamb barbecue!) We were blessed with blue skies, sunshine, and no wind, which is very unusual for southern Patagonia. Well, that is, until our second hike, up a high hill called Cerro Condor, where the wind was so strong that it was hard to walk…at times, even to stand! After our delicious barbecue, we headed back to National Geographic Explorer , where it was docked at Puerto Natales, ready to continue our adventure.
We were up before sunrise this morning to watch the pink glow as it descended over the mountains and glaciers around us. A short hike brought us to the foot of Bernal Glacier just when the colors were at their most brilliant. We had a second opportunity to stand in awe as we contemplated the sheer power of ice needed to carve this beautiful landscape. Back on board, we stretched our minds in an abstract direction with a workshop on the use of watercolor to document our expedition from Naturalist Shannon Malone. Our timing was planned around our passage through the Kirke Narrows. We needed to pass through at slack tide to navigate the strait, which is barely three times the width of National Geographic Explorer .
