the most dangerous ocean crossing in the
world is from South America Antarctica
600 miles of the most treacherous and
unpredictable waters on the planet Drake
Passage right now six elite athletes are
attempting to survive arctic cold
temperatures wind storms and 40-foot
swells in a rowboat
[Music]
yeah
there was a tragic incident about four
or five days ago where a chilean
military plane actually took off from
puntarenas and it was last seen on the
radar in the middle of Drake Passage
thought that all 38 people on board died
disaster in the skies off Chile after a
military transport plane disappeared
overnight the Chilean Air Force says
that one of its cargo planes has crashed
with 38 people on board the plane left
Punta Arenas Chile just before 5 p.m.
Monday when it disappeared over a
violent stretch of ocean called the
Drake Passage so sad to hear about 38
people who lost their lives and their
families and their friends and so my
condolences certainly go out to all of
them and now all the boats in the area
are doing a grid formation as well as
planes flying over for the search and
rescue I found some degree they found a
few of the crew members but they're
still the search and rescue is underway
so due to that and the kind of chaos
that's happening in the area our
expedition is being a bit more
scrutinized howdy guys
yeah we seem to be the most
insignificant problem that Chile has an
amount
okay we're not part of it and they don't
want us to be part of it
we got boarded by the Chilean Navy they
asked us to reroute our position the
port to Williams where we currently are
Chile the Coast Guard's are at the
moment the extremely tense the criteria
of safety are elevate that the crew here
on Braveheart have been incredibly
supportive and doing everything they can
to work in concert with the Chilean
authorities to hopefully grant us the
passage that we had already applied for
and already have the full permitting to
do I've inspected our boat they've
inspected your boat so we've met all the
requirements what we haven't managed to
massage is to satisfy the Chilean
research and rescue people that we are
not going to add to their troubles
[Music]
we're sitting in Porto Williams
uncertain about when we can leave and
obviously it doesn't look like the
safest operation because we're about to
put a robo into some of the roughest
waters in the world
you guys are embarking on a dangerous
crossing of the Drake Passage and I'm
making a decision for 35 o'clock we'll
know what's happened
Drake Passage is a waterway that does
get crossed by a number of large boats
every single year there's a pretty
noteworthy crossing that happened in
1988 by a guy named Ned Gillette he did
a hybrid row sail down through the Drake
Passage and he actually stopped on the
outer islands and so what we're gonna do
is completely row we have no ability to
harness the wind but also we're going
all the way to the actual continent of
Antarctica is I call it standing on the
shoulders of giants
each Explorer is pushing it a little bit
further than what's ever happened before
honestly Drake can get I hope I will
never ever have to see that those storms
they just you they just swooped us
through the Drake Passage
so the Drake has a well deserved
reputation for violent currents and in
major storms that the ocean is not a
joke you know you need to be very
careful in earnest reputation as a place
that has no mercy I can't think of why
anybody would want to cross the Drake
Passage for fun
so the Drake Passage is the body of
water that lies between South America
and the Antarctic Peninsula you have all
the right conditions for a very rapid
change in ocean conditions
you've got the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans coming together in this opening
so storms that come in are sort of
funneled down into this very vulnerable
area you know it's sort of like closing
down a space from a very wide two-lane
highway to you know a narrow one lane
road and because of that choke point
there's simply a lot of energy being
focused so one of the strongest currents
in the world and so that pushes you
where you sometimes someone to go to you
have a very large chance to encounter
storms they're massive storms that have
an incredible energy and incredible
strength and the winds there are really
really strong you can have waves that
they are dramatically high we have
recorded with the radar wave of heights
of about 60 feet pitching so sleeping is
gonna be difficult being continuously
wet you know and not being able to get
dried out and to have your energy sapped
from you because you know the water and
the coal just drains it from you you
really recognize that it's it's a place
that humans really aren't supposed to be
once you get past that it's a magical
place
you're gonna see wandering albatrosses
that are have a wingspan that's 11 or 12
feet cape petrel it look like the
Jackson Pollock paint splattered on
their backs and you're gonna see some
hourglass dolphins which are magical
little black and white dolphins I can
recall the best day of my life in the
trake myself and a colleague we're up on
the bridge looking for marine mammals
and in about a 2 hour period we we
counted us in 25 beaked whales frankly
most people have never seen them and we
could just see them all over the place
and it was just magical I've never had
anything close to that everywhere we
looked there was life and it was life
that we just don't regularly get to see
to me the Drake Passage represents kind
of that rite of passage that you have to
go through to be able to get to a place
like the Antarctic you need to suffer
it's been a tense 24 hours with the
Chilean Navy boarding our ship
understandable given the tragedy that
happened with the plane crash and Drake
and so they're wondering if their risky
exhibition to really take off given that
recent tragedy they've decided to give
us the green light to proceed to Cape
Horn to begin the expedition the second
the crane can drop us off for Braveheart
at Cape Horn tomorrow morning
it's go time follow the expedition in
real time on discovery