The Beagle Channel

(above: Simon the Penguin and birdwatching guru)

After a lifeboat drill I prayed for fine weather. 68 persons in that in tiny lifeboat for 18 days at sea was not exactly an appealing idea.

Still no Canadian permit and the troops were getting restless. Then Boris the Boss announced that we would be setting sail down the protected waters of the Beagle Channel, permit or not. After four hours of sailing down the channel if the permit had arrived we would continue south to Antarctica. If no permit had arrived from the Canadian authorities we would turn east to South Georgia. The natives were reseless.

(early morning on board Akademik Ioffe in Ushuaia harbour)

We gathered on the decks with binoculars and cameras and 400mm lenses trying to spot albatross, but mainly trying to spot the permit. Just what are those Canadians doing besides making maple syrup.

The chef brewed up coffee with a dash of the doings and fresh ginger cookies. But happy feet had given away to shuffling feet as we chugged at 12 knots along Beagle, Only an hour to go before the intersection.

With an hour left on the clock Big Bad Boris swung from the yardarm like Johnny Depp and proclaimed that the permit had just been received by carrier pigeon and we bound for Antarctica.
We shot so many albatrosses after hearing that news. There's the old myth that killing an albatross brings bad luck to sailors. Well we shot maybe a hundred or more that afternoon. The WAndering Albatross has wingspan approaching that of a Cessna 152 but a little more elegant. They swoop and dive and stalk the ship waiting for what?

I snuggled into my cozy bunk that night, porthole open above my head and doona pulled up. The menace of Drake's Passage lay ahead but at this stage I was happy that I was Antarctica bound.