Crossing the Drake Passage--the Drake Shake or Drake Lake?

Greetings from the middle of the Antarctic Ocean! We sighted our first iceberg after two days traveling at sea. You can imagine the scene that followed--a mad scramble to grab coats and cameras and rush on deck. The weather has been fairly mild during our crossing of the Drake passage. The total time it takes to cross the Drake Passage is 60 hours. Sometimes this passage is called "The Drake Shake" due to high winds and waves up to 30feet high. Other times the water is smooth as glass and is referred to "The Drake Lake." We were closer to the Drake Lake-- it has been a 3 or 4 on the Beaufort Wind scale [with 1 being a beautiful day and 12 being a typhoon]. Despite the relatively smooth seas, there are no stabilizer bars on the ship so we constantly rock from side to side in long slow motions. During the rocking, one side of the ship goes up about 15 feet and then down about 15 feet. That means we can not walk upright and constantly have to hold on to one of the railings. Taking a shower during this tilting is quite a challenge as well. I have not felt sick at all and expect that is due to the motion sickness patch behind my ear. Yay!

Update--later in the day the winds really picked up, reach top speeds of over 30 knots. Here is a video to show how hard it is to even walk with speeds like that.



You can also go to the following site and see a short video clip that demonstrates how much the ship was rolling before the storm! http://vimeo.com/10282538 .

We have passed the time with lectures on history, seals, penguins, tasty meals, and great conversation in the lounge/bar area. Everyone I've met thus far on the trip is really interesting to talk to and hang out with. The entire ship is sold out for the tour--99 runners, about 12 friends/family members, and 14 tour support staff. Talk about a small world--I have met a guy who also graduated from my alma maters--North Carolina Wesleyan and UNC-Chapel Hill, a lawyer who works for the US Coast Guard and knows me (but I didn't know her till now), and a DC lobbier who is a good friend of the DHS Office of the General Counsel Chief of Staff that I work regularly with.

Tomorrow we will reach King George Island. The race organizers will go ashore to mark the course while the ship travels further down the islands and we stop in to visit the Polish research station and see lots of elephant seals nearby. There may also be fur seals which we will have to be careful around. Apparently they do bite and will chase you if you get too close. I'll be sure to keep my distance and rely on the zoom lens on the camera to get that great close-up shot!

All Aboard!

In just another hour we will board our ship, the Lyubov Orlova, and begin our journey southward. A large group of us just finished "patching up." By that I am referring to the motion sickness patches that you place behind your ear and leave in place for three days. We just had a wonderful lunch of king crab in the port town of Ushuaia and then placed those magic dots of medicine behind our ears. Sara put two on, logically thinking that since we have two ears, we must use two patches, right? Not right. Luckily she happened to mention that to us at the table and we could stage an intervention before she got too much of the medicine in her system and started to hallucinate! Ushuaia is a smallish town (70,000 people) located at the base of the Andes mountains. It reminds me of some of the Alaskan towns I visited while doing the glacier cruise a few years ago. There is a rustic charm mixed with the many tourist traps selling stuffed penguins, post cards, and liquor to bring aboard ship. I will pick up a bottle of wine to bring with me because I am optimistic that my patch will work and I'll actually be able to eat and drink. Then again, sometimes the swells on the Drake Passage are over 40 feet high and it is all you can do to stay in your berth and not be bucked out!

By the way, the Crown Prince of the Netherlands made it in okay. He joined us at the restaurant for lunch. No sign of the couple from the French Polynesians though.

Next stop--Antarctica!

Polo was a blast!

When in Argentina, do what the Argentinians do....which often includes polo matches. Most Argentinians watch the matches and a few play. A group of us from the trip decided that we wanted to learn how to play ourselves. We got in touch with Fernando of Elite Polo and he was more than happy to pick us up at our hotel, take us to the polo stables and field located about 40 km outside of BA, and teach us how to play. Of the four of us who went, only one new how to ride a horse (she actually owns a horse and goes foxhunting for fun in northern Virginia). The rest of us have ridden only a couple of times, usually part of one of those long lines of horses shuffling down a dusty trail. Within minutes of getting out of the car, we had our protective helmets on our noggins and were on a horse. We then quickly went through the process of learning how to walk and gallop on the horse using our body weight or pulling on the reins. Once we had that down pat, we added the long stick used to hit the ball and we practiced going up and down the field whacking it. If we felt particularly ambitious, we would tell the horse to gallop and then would try and connect with the ball. I think we usually connect every other time we swung the club! The time went by quick, despite the bright sun and high humidity today which made the sweat run down our cheeks. We paused for about 20 minutes and relaxed in the shade with a cool glass of a local version of lemonade made with a type of grapefruit (it was not as sour as most grapefruits and very refreshing on this hot summer day. Keep in mind that the seasons are reversed and it is summer in Argentina. We then moved on to our final exam--a polo match of guys against the girls, played by the real rules of polo.


I can't really recall all of the rules but it had something to do with staying on one side of the plane of the ball or else being called off-sides, as swing and a miss is a fault, and that shoving your horse against another is excellent defense. We played for about 45 minutes in a game that probably appeared to real polo fans to be conducted in slow-motion. Every once in a while we would gallop and some how I managed to stay on the horse. Did I mention the saddles were English and not Western? That means, no pommel to hold on to (not that you could because you had the reins and whip in your left hand and the mallet/stick thing in your right). The guys eventually beat the girls, 6-4, and we all shook hands and called it a day. We then relaxed with a glass of cold Argentinian beer before heading back to town. What a blast!! If you find yourself in Buenos Aries, look up Fernando at Elite Polo. He is a professional polo player who loves to introduce beginners like me to the sport he loves. Now I feel like I have earned the right to actually wear a polo T-Shirt. :)

Royalty, politics, and setting world records

Last evening we had our race check-in, welcome banquet, and received an overview of the upcoming race in Antarctica. Nearly everyone has made it to Buenos Aires, with a few notable exceptions. A couple from the French Polynesian Islands were diverted from landing in Santiago due to the earthquake and are currently somewhere between Australia and South America. The Crown Prince of the Netherlands and his wife are still en route and should arrive some time this evening. [We were briefed that protocol requires us to refer to him as "His Highness Peter Christian" unless he says otherwise. It is possible that he may relax the rules of protocol while we struggle against the 30 mph winds during the race together. We'll see.] Having royalty amongst us will certainly add another dimension to the event, such as having the Ambassador to the Netherlands as part of the welcoming party at the hotel when he arrives. Another interesting piece of news was that Vice President Biden's son and daughter-in-law are not going to be running after all due to the politics tensions between Chile and the United States regarding the building of a new aircraft runway in Antarctica by Biden's son's company. But the MOST critical piece of information we learned was that there can be no powerbars or gu wrappers brought on to Antarctica land. This caused quite a murmur through the crowd since long distance runners usually rely on the energy gels and bars to help sustain them through the race. The reason for this ban is because someone had a powerbar wrapper blow out of their hands during the high winds of the race last year and was found by one of the scientists on the land. This was enough proof for several countries that maintain a claim to land in Antarctica to assert that the marathon should no longer be permitted to continue. Litter. [These are the same scientists that are using diesel generators, spilling fuel, and driving all over the land in ATVs, trucks and snowcats.] Hypocracy aside, all of the runners all feel very strongly about taking care of this very special place and everyone is willing to do what it takes to ensure that the race can continue in the future. To that end, the U.S. State Department has assigned an environmental scientist to the accompany us to Antarctica. He will be assessing the impact of the race on the land and ensuring compliance with the 17 page declaration of conditions imposed by Antarctica treaty signatories on the runners and tour company.





A few other fun facts:

• This is the 11th running of the race.
• There are 99 runners from 15 countries participating: US, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Israel, Ukraine, and Lebanon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The youngest participant is 24 and she is on track to be the youngest person to run 7 marathons on 7 continents.The oldest participant is 72--Horst Prestler from Germany. He has completed 1703 marathons already. When he was introduced, he received a standing ovation from all of the runners. Thom Gilligan (the tour organizer) later quipped, "What took you so long to get to Antarctica!?"
• We have been officially invited on behalf of the US government to visit the Palmer Station. Only seven invitations are extended annually.

We have one more day in Buenos Aires and then are off to Ushuaia to sightsee and get on the boat. Tomorrow may be the last day I can post before I get on the ship. There is no internet on board so I'll catch up when I get back online again. I now have to figure out how to get my gu in a container with a hinged lid that cannot blow off...I am thinking that a small toothpaste container may do the trick. I'll let you know how it works out. :)

Tomorrow's Adventure? Learning to play polo!

Argentina is famous for several things: the tango, their red wine, and having world class polo teams. Lucky for me and a few others in their group, there is a polo instruction center just outside of Buenos Aires called Polo Elite. You can check them out on Facebook. This should be quite a hoot to ride a horse and try and hit a baseball with a giant mallet, especially since I have only ridden a horse a couple of times in my life. I will be asking for the smartest, gentlest, accommodating horse possible. :)

Losing myself among the dead at La Recoleta Cemetery

Without a doubt, the most beautiful place in Buenos Aires is La Recoleta Cemetery. Our tour included about 20 minutes at this historic and still active cemetery located in one of the most upscale neighborhoods in BA.

I have always thought cemeteries are special places to visit because they encourage us to reflect upon life, death, and those special people or experiences we cherish. This cemetery was no different. Taking up several city blocks and surrounded by a wall 20 feet high, the interior of the cemetery is a maze of cobblestone walkways between mausoleums both grand and modest in size and appearance. The tour buses were dropping their bus loads of people off every 10 minutes and the guides hustled the groups through the narrow streets of this living city of the dead in the most direct route to reach Eva Peron's grave site. Remember Eva Peron? Or perhaps more likely, do you remember the musical Evita which was based on her life? Eva Peron is something like a saint here in BA. People still hang pictures of her in their shops and houses. While I followed our tour group into the cemetery, I never made it to her grave. I began to walk slower and slower and then eventually gave up trying to keep up with the group winding through the mausoleums. Instead, I focused on the amazing sculptures on the mausoleums. They were so life-like in their expressions of grief, hope, and judgment. It was an appropriate reminder of just how precious life is when you are still clinging to it.

Doggie Kindergarten

Did you know that Buenos Aries has doggie kindergartens? They do according to our tour guide for this morning's city tour. Apparently the city has gone barkin' mad for dogs in the past several years and owning a dog is a critical part of your social status. If you are a well-to-do family in the city you must have a Golden Retriever. The most eligible bachelors have Rottweilers and the Paris Hilton wanna-be's will have lap dogs or purse dogs (meaning, the dog is small enough to be carried around in your purse). Since many people have places to go and things to do during the day, someone has to take care of all those dogs. As a result, dog walking is a big business. You can hire someone by the hour or for an entire day. We went by several parks that had designated areas for the dogs to sit in the shade and rest or to romp together. Those are the areas which our tour guide called "doggie kindergartens."