Drake: Stirred, Not Shaken

We pulled anchor and departed from Livingston Island and Hannah Point last night, and began heading north across the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage, and the Southern Ocean in general, have the reputation as some of the roughest waters in the world. It's not that the seas are always rough, but that they can be pretty variable. So sometimes the seas are relatively calm, hence the name "Drake Lake," and sometimes it's pretty rough – the "Drake Shake." Some people actually hope for rough seas just for the experience of it, but not us. Though the seas today may not technically be considered Drake Lake, we think it's pretty close. In fact, we think the seas were a bit rougher on the transit from South Georgia to Antarctica. So we're still feeling good.

We attended a couple of lectures today. The first was by Doug Cheeseman with some photography and perspective on the trips the Cheeseman's lead in East Africa. Doug and Gail have been there over 60 times in 30 years, so have accumulated quite a lot of great photographs, especially of birds. We'd consider going an Africa trip with them – they say they'll continue to lead trips to Africa until they are no longer physically able to do so – but would want to be sure we'd have some focus on the large animals and not just the birds, as we are not birders.

After lunch, we attended a lecture by Rod Planck. We've really come to appreciate Rod during this expedition – he's a great photographer and seems to be quite a good teacher as well. He lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and does photography seminars and workshops there and around the world. We may be checking out some of the options to travel with Rod and Marlene in the future as well.

Then it was time to select photos to submit for the Antarctica slideshow, plus one for the "people" slideshow. For that, we submitted a photo from yesterday where a penguin had approached a fellow passenger and actually started pecking or "beaking" his pants leg. There is a nice shot of the bird looking up at this person (Doug) while Doug looked right back down at him. Greg and I had some close encounters with the penguins as well, certainly where they were close enough to touch, though we restrained ourselves. I don't think they would like that very much...

Tonight we may watch "Christmas in Yellowstone" which is about what is sounds, but also features Tom Murphy, one of the professional photographers on board. We first saw this show just by pure chance in December 2010, after we had booked this trip. The name Tom Murphy seemed familiar so I checked the Cheeseman's itinerary and we realized Tom was going to be on this expedition with us. We were quite excited then and we've learned so much from Tom during the past month, so that's been fantastic. Of course, after watching the program we also thought he was crazy – I mean, he goes into Yellowstone in the middle of winter with a 60 pound pack, skies through the park, and then camps in a lean-to (not even a tent). I believe there is a shot of him waking up one morning by shaking the snow off of his heavy sleeping bag as it had snowed overnight. But the crazy and patient photographers are typically the ones who get the best shots. We would definitely consider booking a trip with Tom in Yellowstone, particularly in the winter as that is his specialty and a place we'd like to revisit.