The Drake Passage: keeping Antarctica pristine
To get to Antarctica by boat, you have to cross some of the roughest seas in the world and that’s the way it should be.
On September 6th 1577 Sir Francis Drake had just cleared the Strait of Magellan on his second circumnavigation of the globe.
He was blown south of Cape Horn by a storm into the area where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans met.
This turbulent stretch of sea was a new discovery and proved that Tierra del Fuego was not connected to the southern landmass as previously thought.
The passage was named after Drake and has since earned a reputation among travellers and explorers as being one of the world’s toughest stretches of water.
We often get asked about seasickness. Even if it is a very calm crossing, the roll of the boat will be an unfamiliar feeling at first.
You are likely to feel nauseous for a couple of hours but you should then get your sea legs and be fine for the rest of the trip.
There is no particular time of year when the sea is calmer. It is widely thought that the end of the season in March is the roughest time as winds are typically stronger.
But March 2009 saw the calmest crossing the crew had experienced in years and they temporarily renamed it Drake Lake.
Either way crossing the Drake Passage is part of the adventure of visiting Antarctica.
At Pura we are strongly of the opinion that flying to Antarctica is not acceptable as it will quickly lead to unsustainable increases in visitor numbers.
The boat crossing maintains the White Continent for those dedicated enough to make the crossing.
You can see the current sea conditions by looking at this wave map of the southern oceans.
Or you can read about our Antarctic cruises.
Royal Caribbean's Labadee resort on Haiti
This morning I was stopped in my tracks by a piece by Mike Thomson on Radio 4’s Today programme about the child slaves of Haiti. It was particularly timely given this week’s maiden voyage of the collosal cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, to Haiti.
A few days ago I posted a comment along the lines of ‘my idea of hell’ on Twitter in response to a BBC website piece from on board the Oasis of the Seas. I’m not going to pretend that my opinions are unbiased, I just do not like the idea of being on a floating behemoth staring out at the world passively ticking off sites seen.
After I saw the images of the ship, I went onto the Royal Caribbean website to see where on earth they were going to park this vast ship.
Being one of the worlds’ poorest countires, I’ll admit to being surprised when I saw Haiti on their list of ports. But then it’s not really Haiti as you might imagine, it’s certainly not the Haiti of the child slaves, it’s an enclave on the north coast called Labadee.
Labadee appears to be a slab of Haiti privately owned by Royal Caribbean for the exclusive use of its cruise guests. It’s a massive beach theme park by the looks of it. Zip lines, water park, swim up bars, jet skis. Not my cup of tea by any means but clearly many of the +/- 350,000 annual visitors have a great time. As of today, Labadee is the number one attraction in Haiti according to Trip Advisor.
Now for the other side of the equation.
As one might expect, the Mike Thomson piece was generally very upsetting. It would seem that there are families so poor that they give away their children to better off families in the hope that they will be fed, clothed and educated. What many of these children are actually delivered into is a life of slavery.
So, how on earth am I going to tie the Oasis of the Seas to a piece on child slavery in Haiti?
Just to get this absolutely straight, I don’t claim any link between the two. I’m just struck by the acute juxtaposition of the cruise resort and Haiti’s extraordinary poverty and misery.
In my opinion, it is a great privilege to be able to travel and see incredible places. But with that privilege comes the responsibility to travel with open eyes and open minds.
That’s reflected in our holidays. If you come on holiday to Peru with us you will see amazing things and stay in charming, comfortable places, meet interesting people. You will also see some poverty, you will see at least some of the contrasts and toughness of everyday life for many people in Peru.
I don’t see how a large cruise ship or a ring-fenced resort can ever offer passengers a meaningful interaction with a destination. I don’t think that makes for responsible or sustainable tourism, at least as I see it.
So, in the great tradition of more questions than answers, here are some questions:
1) Would it be better if Royal Caribbean didn’t go to Haiti at all?
2) Even if their presence is of only very marginal benefit to the island, is something better than nothing?
3) Do passengers know what’s on the other side of the fence? Do they care?
4) Should they?
5) Is large ship cruising fundamentally irreconcilable with responsible tourism?
6) Am I just ‘having a go’ because I don’t like the idea of floating around trapped in a massive hotel with nearly 6,000 other people?
I would really love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.
By the way, the Radio 4 piece is in three parts. The remaining pieces are to be broadcast tomorrow, Friday, and presumably Saturday of this week. Please do try to listen, it is one of those peices which reminds you that radio remains a remarkably powerful medium.
Swimming with a sea turtle in Bahia Gardener, Galapagos
The photo was taken in Bahia Gardener on the western side of Isabela Island in the Galapagos.
I was on day five of a Galapagos cruise holiday on board Cachalote which is a charming but fairly small sail boat. The previous night had been the roughest of the journey as we rounded the southern tip of Isabela against the full force of the prevailing winds. At around 5am we came around the headland and into the still waters of the lee side of the island. It was a wonderful morning to stand on deck with a cup of coffee, enjoying the stillness.
What makes the western side of Isabela so lovely is that relatively very few boats have permission to visit. Whilst landings in the middlemost islands of the archipelago are very well managed, you are usually aware of a few other boats. Out on the far shores of Isabela this just isn’t the case and you really get a welcome sense of remoteness.
Gardener Bay is one of the few wet landing sites – i.e. you hop out of the zodiac into thigh deep sea and walk up onto the beach. From here there is a path leading off into a baking hot dry forest which is home to land iguanas and also giant tortoises, apparently. The tortoises weren’t coming out to play the day we visited so we headed back to the beach where we could relax, read, swim or snorkel.
At this particular site, you can swim anywhere within the bay so I took advantage of the freedom to float off snorkelling on my own. A few minutes later I came across this turtle, grazing on seaweed. For the next 20 minutes or more we drifted together, at times literally inches apart. There was nobody else out in the bay, no big group to rejoin, just time alone to swim with a sea turtle.
That was the moment it struck me how privileged I was to be in the Galapagos, how lucky we are that this place even exists.
You can read more in our guide to the Galapagos islands or on our Galapagos cruises page