Page 40 - MILA'S TRAVELOGUE - ANTARTICA
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DAY 4 AT SEA TO ANTARCTICA
FEB. 23, 2019 CROSSING THE DRAKE PASSAGE
Most visitors to Antarctica must cross the Drake Passage,
the narrow stretch of water separating South America from
the Antarctic Peninsula. Sir Francis Drake, an English explorer,
discovered this stretch of water in September 1578. Sailing on
board the Golden Hind and having passed through the Strait
of Magellan into the Pacific, his ship ran into a storm and got
blown far to the South which implies an open connection
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The 600 miles wide Passage between Cape Horn and Livingston
Island is the shortest crossing from Antarctica to the rest of the
world. If there is one place, one sea, one passage that visitors,
scientists and other sailors and seafarers fear in the Antarctic,
it is the Drake Passage.
The construction of Panama Canal which opened in 1904,
one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects
ever undertaken, greatly reduced the time for ships to travel
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans enabling them to
avoid the hazardous route around the southernmost tip of
South America via the Drake Passage. But this is another story,
folks.
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