Map of Drake’ s Passage with our current course – Map from Google Maps
The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the first to prove, in 1520, that it is possible to travel westwards from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through what is now called the Strait of Magellan. Before that it was unclear whether there was an opening in South America or whether land continued all the way down to the South pole. Darwin’ s ship, The Beagle, captained by Fitzroy, later discovered another connecting channel, now called the Beagle Channel. These channels are still useful to shipping, because they allow ships to avoid the treacherous waters south of Tierra del Fuego and the Cape of Good Hope. Or in other words, to avoid going through Drake Passage.
However, rather than avoiding Drake Passage, we are going to trundle slowly across it, stopping twice a day to fish for plankton, analyse the sea water chemistry and see what gases are dissolved in it. The reason for our coming here is that the carbon chemistry of seawater varies strongly across Drake Passage, and so we hope to learn more about how plankton respond to these variations by studying the natural system across the Passage.
* Presumably Roald Amundsen did not regard helping to save Britain from the Spanish Armada as especially important.
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