Imagine a Frankenstein mashup of all of your darkest, deep-sea terrors, and you just may
come close to describing the single-most terrifying strip of water on the planet:
Drake's Passage. This nightmarish watery wasteland near the bottom of the Earth combines a host of
unique dangers with fierce weather systems and bottomless depths. Throw in the possibility of
real-life sea monsters, and you have a journey fit for only the saltiest of souls. Picture biting
glacial waters clashing with warmer currents from the north in a ghoulish, frenzied washing machine
that eats cruise ships alive. How about staggering depths that rival some of the tallest mountains on
the planet, or rogue waves that smash-up ships like matchsticks? There's a reason the pristine
polar regions are untouched: you have to travel through the roughest seas you've never heard of
to get there! Here are six reasons why you need to be a madman to venture into Drake's Passage.
If you want to explore the untouched, pristine paradise of Antarctica, you’ll have to pay your
respects at Drake’s Passage. Drake’s Passage is the strip of southern sea that you’ve never
heard of but would freeze you to the core- and not just because of the frigid Antarctic water.
Drakes Passage sits right off the very southern tip of South America
and reaches up into the chilly embrace of the Antarctic Peninsula,
and is the site of rough seas, monster waves, and more shipwrecks than you can count. Ready to get
your polar cherry popped? Here are six facts that you’ve never heard about Drake’s Passage!
The Waters Are Some Of The Coldest On The Planet
Number six: stay out of the water!
Drake’s Passage sits right near the very bottom of the world, so it’s waters are downright freezing,
but what makes this stretch of sea so dangerous isn’t just the temperature.
Drake’s Passage is like the world’s mightiest washing machine, dredging up chilly seawater
from the polar region and mixing it with warmer water from the north. Sea
temperatures can fluctuate twenty degrees, a huge difference when it comes to how kind the sea is!
Cold and warmer water do battle in Drake’s Passage, forming massive eddies that wash
and rinse smaller ships in their currents. Even the bravest sailors
shudder to think about the mighty clash of water sloshing around in Drake’s Passage!
There Are Crazy Currents
Speaking of currents, number five is the sheer number of
crazy currents that flow through Drake’s Passage. Thanks to the wicked mix of warm and cold water,
these currents are the most powerful on Earth, and to add horror to sheer terror-
you’ll also have to contend with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
The biggest in the world, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, runs a whopping 12,4000
miles, splitting Drakes Passage right in half with its mighty flow. Drake’s Passage’s narrow
size bottlenecks the water and makes the ACC even more intense and deadly.
Drake’s Passage is only five hundred miles,
and most ships can pass through in two days- if they make it.
The sheer volume of warm and cold currents rushing through Drake’s Passage is astounding!
Even the most seaworthy vessels quake in terror when they have to cross the dreadful Drake!
Drake’s Passage Is Super Deep Number four: Drake’s Passage is deep and dark.
This perilous polar Passage is 11,000 feet deep in its shallowest parts. Many parts of the Drake
dip below 15,600 feet. That means that you could put Mount Rainer upsidedown in the Passage and
still have room for a colossal sea monster to swim in the space between its base and the surface.
That’s a lot of water… and nobody knows for certain what lies in wait down there
under the chilly waves. One thing is for certain… if the cold water or the massive currents didn’t
get you first, there is no way you’d be able to swim your way out of Drake’s Passage.
It should come as no surprise that Drakes Passage is also the site of several strange
sea sightings. From leviathans to gigantic squid, pretty much every imaginable freak of the deep
has been spotted in these waters. With so much mystery swirling around Drake’s Passage,
who is to say what’s real and what’s fiction? One thing is for sure: you’re taking your life
in your hands when you venture forth through Drake’s deep, dark, Passage!
Rogue Waves Are Common
Our number three pick is the worst-case scenario that you can imagine when attempting to make your
way through rough, freezing, deep seas in one of the most remote parts of the world.
Rogue waves can happen anywhere, but they are extremely common in Drake’s Passage.
These mammoth waves come out of nowhere, and even the sturdiest ships are powerless to stop them.
Towering dozens of feet, and sometimes reaching one-hundred terrifying feet of sheer water,
these walls of death cause inevitable calamity. If you’re traveling through Drake’s Passage,
there’s a good chance that you’ll see one of these monsters up-close.
Is it the nature of the water in the Drake, or the fact that the seas are so spine-tingly deep
that causes it to be a rogue wave breeding ground?
We might never know! What we do know is that unpredictable seas and surprise gargantuan waves
make Drake’s Passage a place where only those with nerves of steel dare to tread!
It’s a Notorious Sea Graveyard
Number two: it’s a notorious sea graveyard. After everything we’ve
told you about Drake’s Passage, did you really expect it to be easy? Even so,
Drake’s Passage is more than just a dangerous stretch of icy, deep sea. It’s also the final
resting place for tons of different ships who rolled the dice with the Drake and lost out big.
We don’t know all of the lives or vessels that Drake’s Passage has claimed, but there
are horrible accounts that go all the way back to the beginning of record keeping. The cruelest is
the San Telmo, which set sail through the Drake in 1819 and never returned to the safety of dry land.
What happened to the San Telmo? We can only speculate that it ran afoul of a killer current,
towering rogue wave, or perhaps some colossal creature of the deep.
Nearly seven hundred people lost their lives, and the San Telmo was lost to the annals of history.
The San Telmo is only one example of a ship that lost the battle with mighty nature,
but don’t be fooled into thinking that these sorts of things don’t happen today.
Drake’s Passage is just as dangerous as it ever was…
and maybe even more as people get the thirst to travel to the lowest reaches of the planet!
Drake’s Passage Eats Cruise Ships
Don’t get too comfy on that deck chair! Our number one pick is the horrifying fact that
Drake’s Passage eats cruise ships with alarming regularity.
Nope, the size of your ship won’t do squat to prevent a disaster.
Drake’s Passage takes absolutely no prisoners, even those who have paid big bucks for Antarctica
bragging rights. You’ll only be able to get through with nerves of steel and sheer luck.
In 2010 the luxury cruise ship Clelia II was battered mercilessly by winds and waves in Drakes
Passage, lost power, and had to retreat back to the safety of South America. Fortune favored the
crew and passengers of the Clelia II, and even though their entire bow was almost submerged
beneath the unforgiving waves, they managed to escape. The Silversea Explorer was smashed by a
rogue wave in 2013, and the MV Explorer actually sank after colliding into an ice-berg, shattering
the Antarctic hopes and glory of her passengers. Miraculously, not a single person died.
Drakes Passage is not to be trifled with, and this mighty and unpredictable stretch routinely bests
and beats even the toughest vessels on the planet. If you dream of seeing the immaculate,
untouched regions of the southern world- tread with caution. There’s no way to get
there without paying the piper at Drake’s Passage- and the price of admission is high.
Would you have the guts to go to the Drakes Passage? Let us know in the comments below.
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