Drake Passage Musings

The Drake Passage is feared and respected as one of the most treacherous bodies of water on the planet. You need to cross it to get to Antarctica. Now wait a minute you might say, but you don’t NEED to go to Antarctica. True. But then, who wouldn’t want to see this mind-boggling, spectacular sight in their lifetime if they could. In person. Not on the National Geographic channel.

The crossing takes 36-48 hours. Note the 12 hour range. That’s because you don’t know what you’re gonna get. Drake lake or Drake quake. I think worse might be a Drake lake honky dory forecast only to have nature do a switcheroo on you and rear its ugly head while in transit. Knowing most of life is about expectation management that would be a hard one to handle especially because you’d have to take the most effective sea sickness medicine about 12 hours in advance. There is a website dedicated to the weather prediction for just that area and I am wondering if I’d develop OCD checking it. So I might have a great trip but come home with a new mental tick. I can’t really afford to add new ones. Oh, did I make it clear that you obviously have to cross it coming AND going?

Sigh. What to do? What to do? To go or not to go. Because that is the question keeping me up at 3am (like now). I have a hold on a booking. Dream conditions. Can’t beat the itinerary (23 days including the Falkland Islands and South Georgia) nor the price considering I’d be traveling solo which adds an arm and a leg to trips. I have three more weeks to put down a deposit.

To go or not to go.

To be or not to be.

To be the kind of person who dares.

To be the kind of person who embraces uncertainty.

To be the kind of person who sits in peace with weeks of alone time at sea.

To be the kind of person who puts her own agenda first.

The question is big and I am overthinking it as per usual.

Three weeks to make the first commitment.

The right thing will come to me.  

It always does.