The notorious Drakes Passage. The place where the rough seas can dislodge furniture, footsteps and even the most hardened stomach from its moorings.

It is basically the natural way of entering a washing machine.

For those of you who didn’t listen in primary school history and geography lessons, the Drake Passage is the treacherous stretch of ocean between the southern tip of South America (at Cape Horn) and the northernmost reaches of Antarctica.

It is where the otherwise unimpeded waves of the vast Southern Ocean squeeze through the narrow and shallow bottleneck of the Drake Passage, and in the process, generate complicated, unpredictable and often brutal weather.

Just as a reference – Drakes Passage has taken 20,000 sailors have lost their lives exploring these waters.

I had survived this washing machine of the worlds seas twice before and with a stomach full of sea-sickness tablets and a heart full of hope I prayed to every higher power that my stomach would survive.

Somehow the excitement of heading to a part of the world that had already stolen my heart merely months before made the experience less frightening. And we were lucky for a March expedition. We had a very smooth Drake to cross.

Let’s just say the big photo at the top here were my expectations and the mild shot on the left was reality. I made it through the Drake without even a stomachache. Next stop: Antarctica.