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Drake’s Shake or Lake Passage
  • Paul and Nancy. We travel
  • Paul and Nancy. We travel

Drake’s Shake or Lake Passage

Sir Francis Drake did it way back when so we figured we can do it now. South America is calling . . . Read more
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  • Trip start
    January 19, 2026
    Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    And so it begins . . .

    January 19 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    Another Oh Dark 30 departure, this time to Rio de Janeiro Brazil via Dallas then boarding the Oceania Marina for 24 days of exploring. Our voyage takes us south along the east coast of South America, some weather permitting “yomping” in the Falklands, getting a sail past peek at Antarctica, a little puttering around Patagonia and ending up sailing north along the west coast of South America to Santiago Chile.

    A trip that has been on (and off and back on and . . .) our list for quite awhile . . . Via con Dios😎    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel
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    A long day travelling to the beach

    January 20 in Brazil ⋅ 🌧 24 °C

    After a long 26 hour day of airports and flights we were deposited into a downpour in Rio early this morning.

    But the weather has improved, the locals have brought out the band to welcome us and we are setting off to check out the famous Copacabana Beach.Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel
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    1,347 things to do in Rio in 24hrs

    January 21 in Brazil ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    So our one full day in Rio started with a 0745 hotel pickup then 10 hours of touring the local highlights. If it is in Rio and has any importance, we probably saw it. From the Copacabana beach to the top of Sugar Loaf (yes Nancy did two cable cars!) to making a new best friend chef at our lunch stop at a Brazilian steakhouse to standing in awe at the famous Christ the Redeemer in the clouds. We saw the really huge pop art whale sculpture in the port area, the huge Apollo spacecraft shaped cathedral that seats 5000 and SRO’s 20,000 and their odd, in their own weirdly wonderful way, Seleron Steps

    It was a great day and a long day, ending with a light supper at one of the Copacabana beachside restaurants.

    Pack up tomorrow morning and board our ship the Oceania Marina at about noon. Then the real fun begins    Read more

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    Heading south. In the clag.

    January 23 in Brazil ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    An easy day yesterday, getting to Rio’s spiffy Cruise Ship Terminal and settling in onboard and into our cabin. The weather isn’t cooperating much but the tropical Brazilian air is soft and comfortable and allowed us to dine outdoors on the Deck 12 Grill Terrace last night as we departed Rio leaving its blaze of lights in our wake.

    This ship is really nice and at the same time it feels a bit weird. It is a scaled up version of other smaller Oceania ships we have sailed on so everything is in the same place, just bigger, newer and fancier.

    Today was a half day snorkelling trip while anchored at Ilha Grande, an island that for a century+ was home to a notorious Brazilian jail for the worst of their hardened criminals. It was closed down in the 90’s and the miles and miles of white sandy beaches soon attracted tourism. The dense green vegetation and those beautiful beaches reminds us both of Tahiti.

    And because those who know want to know . . . Horizons Lounge on Deck 15 forward is very well coffee machine equipped and the still warm freshly baked croissants arrive at 0600. Sharp!

    About time to weigh anchor and continue making wakes heading south. Santos awaits us in the morning.    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Santos. How Brazil does beaches better.

    January 24 in Brazil ⋅ 🌧 25 °C

    Pitched up this morning in the busy port of Santos, Brazil. Lots of container ships and bulk carriers all over the busiest port in South America. Very Suki Land👍

    Santos is the port for the massive city of São Paulo about an hour and a half away. For comparison sake, Santos population is about 450,000 whereas Metropolitan São Paulo is about 22 million to 25,000,000.

    But for our purposes, Santos is the city of beaches. We took a short bus ride into town and walked their version of the Copacabana strip. Just a beautiful beach, packed with people, tons of colourful umbrellas vendors and just a really good happy vibe.

    Got yakking with a local fellow named Albert who gave us the rundown about life in Santos, how family life revolves around the beach, especially on weekends and with this being a Saturday it was pretty crowded. The beach reminded us a bit of the one in Zihuayaneji/Ixtapa in Mexico, with good dose of Parksville and Sonoka for fun effect.

    A nice relaxing day, Nancy caught a few rays of unexpected sunshine back on the ship and we are looking forward to a special Chef’s Brazilian Feast at the Terrace Grill tonight

    Let there the BBQ’d meat!

    Not too many days of warm tropical evenings and outdoor deck dining left as we head south to colder climes    Read more

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    Balneario. Brazil’s beach playground

    January 25 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    A stunningly modernistic tourist city in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, it is Brazil’s most popular beach destination, frequently nicknamed the “Brazilian Dubai” or a “mini-Dubai” due to its rapid growth, luxurious high-rise skyline, oceanfront towers, upscale vibe, and appeal to affluent visitors and residents. Famous for its dramatic modern architecture with towering skyscrapers it is experiencing a major boom, attracting entrepreneurs, wealthy tourists, and real estate investment and over 6 million tourists a year.

    Nancy rode more cable cars, walked the glass bottomed viewing platform (sort of) and we did more beach time and learned why Brazilians clap on the beach . . . If a child goes missing in the crowd, the parents standup and clap. That is the signal for everyone around to look for a strange child in their area and they clap to signal “not here”. The clapping rolls down the beach until the wayward child is found and a big cheer goes up! A brilliantly simple universal system used all over Brazil and we saw/heard in action during our beach visit today .    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Brazil ✅ Next up Uruguay

    January 27 in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 25 °C

    Spent a full day at sea travelling down the east coast of Brazil passing what seemed like endless miles of beautiful white sandy uninhabited beaches backed by green jungle disappearing into the far distance.

    Pitched up mid morning in Montevideo, Uruguay for a port call. Because the cruise ship terminal is so close to the old city downtown area we opted just to walk off the ship and putter around and see what we could find.

    Even before leaving the dock area, there was a reminder of the 1939 German Navy Admiral Graf Spee battle cruiser incident . . . “The Battle of the River Platte”

    They retrieved the optical rangefinder from the scuttled German navy ship and it is on display at the dock exit area. For the curious . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Riv…

    Although we arrived through some nasty offshore squalls, things developed into a very toasty and very sunny day and after exploring for awhile we were back on board, hot and thirsty, for lunch by two. Nancy got a little pool time in and we had a relaxed afternoon.

    The port of Montevideo is a staging area for the summer Antarctica resupply season and we saw a number of specialized ships taking on cargoes before heading south to restock various research stations as soon as the Antarctic ice breaks up a bit later in the southern hemisphere’s summer.    Read more

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    Don’t cry for me Lionel Messi

    January 28 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We docked this morning in Buenos Aires Argentina and will be here for about 24 hours. We had an organized city tour with an excellent guide today and visited some of the city highlights like Independence Plaza and La Boca stadium, the home of the La Junior’s football club. We also visited the grave of Eva Perón and got the whole very crazy backstory . . . I won’t go through it all here, but it’s a crazy one, much more than Madonna singing don’t cry for me.

    Last day in the tropics, we had off south tomorrow to the Falklands at 0600 and the weather should start getting cooler, have to break out the puffy jacket at some point.

    Beautiful city. We are heading off ship for the evening to a Tango Show!

    Let there be dancing! Did you know the Tango was invented by brothel owners as a means to “warm up” their clientele so to speak so that time actually spent with the prostitute was quicker, therefore increasing throughput through their establishments?

    Truth!    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Sailing the chocolate river.

    January 29 in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    After an excellent 24 hours in buenos Buenos Aires that concluded with a simply fantastic Tango show “Senor Tango” that opened with horses on stage, we departed at about 8 o’clock this morning to continue our trip south.

    The estuary of the River Platte is huge and it will take us about 10 hours of sailing through chocolate brown waters before we reach the ocean. We are restricted to specific dredged navigational channels and must have a pilot on board until we reach the ocean.

    For perspective while the estuary of the river Platte is huge, it is about 1/5 the size and has about 1/7 the amount of sediment that the Amazon river has. So mill chocolate vs dark chocolate waters👍

    Forecast high tomorrow is low 20s so not too much longer before we hit the teens & single digits and break out the long sleeves and the puffy jacket. The 5 day forecast for the Falkland Islands and the Drake Passage looks pretty good at this time. The blue triangles are passenger ships

    Nice easy day, attended a couple of presentations from our on board team of naturalists . . . They are all very good public speakers who mix entertainment and science, presenting topics that will improve our Antarctic experience.

    In related news, my new BFF at the Deck 12 Waves Grill rocked it again today at lunch. The garlic lemon grilled chicken was as good as the chilli lime grilled chicken two days ago.    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Passing through 40

    January 30, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Sailing steadily south, leaving the warm humid tropics behind, passed through 40 degrees south latitude at about noon.

    Decidedly cooler. Hoodies and puffy jackets appearing.

    Now very easy to spot the 30% of the passengers who are Canadian . . . Still in shorts and T shirts and raving about the nice weather and not having to shovel snow.

    A full Sea Day today and another one tomorrow, putting us on time and track for anchoring in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands at 0745 Sunday morning.

    There will be history happening there    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Closing in on 50 degrees south

    January 31, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

    A prep day for the Falklands and more presentations from our Naturalists. The on board enrichment program is exceeding expectations.

    More puffy jackets every hour as we head south to colder climes.

    According to Nancy, there will be dancing tonight at the ship’s Blue Party.    Read more

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    The 33% Rule kicks in . . .

    February 1 in Falkland Islands ⋅ 🌬 13 °C

    Anchored in the Falkland Islands this morning in the outer bay at Stanley. This alone was an accomplishment as the weather here is so bad most of the time that one cruise ship in three isn’t able to put passengers ashore. Because this port does not have a dock big enough for cruise ships, we have to use our ship’s tenders and when the weather is bad, the the problem is loading and unloading these small bobbing boats, especially when the average age of the passengers is probably 70.

    But all in all it was good this morning. The tendering operation was a slower due to the extra time needed for loading and unloading, but we were ashore on a sunny and windy++ day, had a lovely, very English lunch of pies, pies & chips and were all set for our afternoon tour out to the penguin colonies.

    And then the belated 33% Rule rule kicked in, the weather started getting worse, the barometric pressure started dropping (4 points in an hour) and the Captain put the word out that everyone ashore was to return as soon as possible. We were about 20 minutes away from getting on our bus to go out to the penguin colonies and instead we got on board a tender and we got our butts back to the ship.

    Proof that Mother Nature rules the waves.

    The penguins will have to wait for us to admire them.

    The Drake Passage looms ahead:

    Lake?
    Shake?

    Stay tuned, film at 11    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    A Swell Day at Sea

    February 2, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 5 °C

    Seasick bags available all over the ship

    Outer decks closed off

    Barometer still falling

    Big rolling swells, slept like a baby👍👍

    Passing through 55 degrees south

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    Sooooo beyond incredible

    February 3, Bransfield Strait ⋅ 🌬 2 °C

    My undergrad area was Earth Science . . . Geology, Geomorphology, Climatology, Glaciation . . . All that good stuff.

    The last few hours have been like a living lab of pristine Earth Science Reality in motion. It is off the charts awesome, greatly exceeding my expectations.

    A conveyor belt of so many incredible ice and rock formations right out of my old textbooks, now just a few hundred meters away.

    It is a stunning experience that will not be forgotten    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Antarctica on steroids

    February 3, Bransfield Strait ⋅ 🌬 1 °C

    For the last 3 hours this has been our view.

    It is beyond anything that my little old Earth Sciences brain can comprehend.

    It just goes on and on and on. Massive glaciers running down to the ocean . . . countless, relentless, dynamically slow shape shifting iceberg making spectacularness👍👍

    And this is just the coast of Livingston Island, one very small island almost insignificant spec of Antarctica    Read more

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    New Day. New Spectacular.

    February 4, Bransfield Strait ⋅ ☀️ 1 °C

    As wonderful as yesterday was, when you get up the next morning, look out your balcony and see this, you just know it will be another spectacular day.

    The approach to Anvers Island and then Half Moon BayRead more

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    64 Degrees, 30 Minutes South

    February 4, Paradise Bay ⋅ ☀️ -1 °C

    Paradise Bay

    We have been entertaining ourselves naming the bergs as they drift by and the sound of penguins breaching and plopping back in the ocean is quite amusing.

    PyramidBerg
    BigBoyBerg
    CathedralBerg

    And lots of whales and penguins feeding all around the ship

    The spectacular scenery is just endless    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel
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    The Adjective Account is Dry

    February 4, Gerlache Strait ⋅ ⛅ 1 °C

    Today was another superlative day of being awed by Antarctica. A rare day with long periods of no wind, glass calm seas, perfect sunshine and humpback whales, penguins, orcas all over the place and the endless parade of every shape of iceberg and glacier imaginable.

    We are actually a little pooped out . . Our brains have declared a full Awesome, Breathtaking, Scenery Saturation Overload Condition Red alert.

    En route to Admiralty Bay which we are told is another very excellent place to be overwhelmed by Antarctica.    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    Antarctica in the Rear View Mirror

    February 5, Bransfield Strait ⋅ ☁️ 1 °C

    We sailed north overnight from Paradise Bay (Green) through some deteriorating weather to Admiralty Bay (Red) in King George Island, leaving our glorious sunny blue skies behind. A large well protected bay used in the past by whaling factory ships it is now home to multiple research stations operated by, among other nations, Brazil and Poland.

    This bay, being so far north, freezes over last as Winter approaches and melts open soonest in the southern heliosphere’s Spring. Being so close to the Drake Passage, it has, by Antarctica standards, a more benign climate and there are a number of other Research Stations elsewhere on King George Island. The proximity to South America also simplifies the huge logistical support efforts need to keep these bases operating, with a Chilean Air Force base that has a runway suitable for C130 Herc aircraft that makes an airbridge operation possible

    We are at the end of the Antarctica portion of our trip. The last 3 days have been intensely wonderful, mind boggling, eye opening and sensational all at the same time.

    Our northbound transect of the Drake Passage starts in an hour or two. We had the Drake Lake calm waters on our southbound leg and it looks like we will get mostly Lake style waters going north.

    Things that make Nancy smile😎    Read more

  • Paul and Nancy. We travelDrake’s Shake or Lake PassagePaul and Nancy. We travel

    All Lake, No Shake

    February 6, Drake Passage ⋅ 🌬 7 °C

    When we started planning this trip, the Drake Passage was the part that stood out as the big deal. Fortunately for us, our crossings of the Drake have both been quite gentle affairs, definitely on the Drake Lake end of the spectrum without any Drake Shake at all. Very good stuff.

    The Drake is famous (or infamous) for wild seas and howling winds. Between about 40°S and Antarctica, there is almost no land and this allows winds and waves to build up uninterrupted around the globe — known as the “Furious Fifties” and “Screaming Sixties”

    Add to this the massive Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the strongest ocean current on Earth that flows through the Drake Passage, moving west to east around Antarctica, carrying massive amounts of water and the potential for really nasty sailing is right up there.

    Typical sea states on a calm crossing (the Drake Lake) are waves of 6–10 ft (2–3 m) On a rough “Drake Shake” crossing they can be 3X that

    Back in the day of sailing ships, the Drake was so notorious that sailors who survived a transit through the passage were allowed to wear a gold earring in the ear that faced land through their transit, the left ear for west to east and the right ear for east to west.

    I have no plans for any ear piercings.

    The weather forecast for tomorrow looks bad and our port call in Ushuaia, Patagonia is in doubt.

    Mother Nature decides, we just comply    Read more