ANT ARCTICA

By Xenia Taliotis Photography courtesy of Chimu Adventures

We set off for Antarctica under fire. Bullets of skin-bruising, bonesaturating rain and hail pelted us as we boarded our ship in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city on the globe—otherwise known as the “fin del mundo,” or the end of the world. Beyond this point, land plummets into the sea, resurfacing at the White Continent—the bottom of the world.

Remote, wild, vast, mysterious, majestic, beautiful, deadly Antarctica— the windiest, coldest, driest, and most hostile land on our planet—lay more than one thousand kilometers and two days away. Between us and it was the most treacherous body of water on Earth—the Drake Passage. This volatile Jekylland-Hyde channel, where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans collide, shows occasional benevolence under the guise of Drake Lake. Still, more often than not, it rages as the Drake Shake.

Ocean Endeavour, our Chimu Adventures-chartered polar cruise ship, hit the passage just as Drake calmed down from an outburst. Though our expedition leader had delayed our departure to avoid the worst of the violence, we still had to pound through furious waves that rose like demons from the depths, throwing our vessel from one swell to the next. So many people were felled by motion sickness that the restaurant and bars were left largely deserted, occupied only by those who, like me, have the sea in their blood or—less poetically and certainly more accurately—legs as sturdy and solid as an anchor.

Whenever Drake’s waves allowed, I went on deck to scan the sea and sky for wildlife. Soon there would be whales and dolphins, but at the start of our journey, all the action was in the air. Various petrels glided toward me, looping in and out; in their midst was the magnificent wandering albatross. With a wingspan of up to three and a half meters, it is the largest bird on Earth and lives almost entirely on the wing, going on land only to breed. Sighting that remarkable creature was the first of many times I was moved to tears on this voyage.