Cape Horn
It’s really all about the Drake Passage. This famous 500-mile-wide strait, which divides Tierra del Fuego from the Antarctic Peninsula and connects the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans, has a near-mythic presence in maritime history and in the minds of anyone who travels to this region of the Antarctic. More that that, though, the Drake is responsible for the existence of Antarctica as the ice continent we know today.
225 million years ago, around the beginning of the era of the dinosaurs, the landmass we call Antarctica was a part of the globe-spanning supercontinent, Pangaea. As the supercontinent began to rift and drift apart, Antarctica slid south but maintained broad connections to South America, Africa and India. By about 100 million years ago, Africa and India had departed and Antarctica had become a south polar continent, but a very different one from that of today. Great forests of fern-trees and cycads grew in the Antarctic then, providing homes for a diverse community of dinosaurs and associated land animals. Plesiosaurs (marine reptiles) swam in the cool but unfrozen seas off shore. What a fascinating place this would have been to visit: a temperate ecosystem with polar features like midnight sun in the summer and months-long night in winter.
Finally, only about 20 million years ago, South America and the Antarctic Peninsula were forced apart by the eastward migration of the Scotia Plate and the Drake Passage opened. This allowed cold waters to circulate without interruption around the Antarctic, locking the continent into the deep freeze we know today. Everything changed; forests were replaced by glaciers and virtually all species of land animals and plants vanished. In the sea, many new species evolved strange and wonderful adaptations, allowing them to survive in water colder that the freezing temperature of their blood.
Today the Drake Passage is often perceived as a barrier to a visit to Antarctica, but in fact, it is an integral part of the journey. Seldom as rough as its reputation, the crossing of the Drake gives us time to prepare as we approach the seventh continent and time to contemplate and reminisce as we return. It is one of the premier seabird-watching grounds of the world, and it is steeped in history that adds yet another facet to our expedition. Occasionally the passage can be a bit tough, but I have never, ever heard anyone say that it was not well worth it.
