#antarctic ocean | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mediumgayitalian · 8 months ago

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The Great Current is, as most things in Hades’ domain, expressly forbidden.

The Surface is iffy grounds. If Nico is feeling strong enough to brave his father, he may attempt to convince him to allow him up on the ice sheets long enough to catch some of the sun, unbidden, even as he is burned by the winds. If he is lucky he will have the time to watch the penguins as they tussle, leaping and bounding down their steep slides. If he is luckier Hades will allow Hazel to come with him, and he will poke her in the ribs, teasing, one when of the nestlings waddles after its father, tripping down the slope and rolling into a feathery birdball. On his luckiest days she will shove him tail over fin as she cursesinto a half-frozen ravine, cackling as he shrieks his promise for revenge.

Neither have them have been to the Surface in a some time.

It’s hard in the winters, he knows. Air whistles away the sun’s warmth so quickly, as flighty and biting as a dolphin, and to be beached upon the ice sheets in the dark is to die buried and forgotten under the snow, too far gone even too pay the due rites. But even the dry and barren ice sheets are a mercy compared to beyond the Great Current. As much as Nico chafes under Hades’ frozen glare and icicle rule, his strictness is protective. He has swum the wide expanse outside of the Underworld; endured the desert endlessness, the scarcity, the risk. Here m, within the boundaries of the Current, the boundaries in which Hades as confined them, they have plenty. Here there is no surface untouched. Here there is ice and cold and silent, endless stillness, but never emptiness. Inside the Current, inside the castle walls, is safe.

Nico peers around the castle wall. A small hole in the ice-crust allows a beam of sunlight, brightening the grounds significantly more than inside, bouncing and twinkling off the frozen pillars. Many of the bottom feeders have retreated away from it, slinking into the shadowy corners, but a minke whale floats near the surface, basking in the heat. Her warped shadow leads a trail across the grounds to a small-mouthed tunnel — more of a crack in the ice sheets than anything.

She catches sight of Nico’s lingering form, raising a lazy brow. He shrugs — minkes, unlike his father’s favoured starfish, know to mind their own — and smiles sheepishly. She holds his gaze for a moment, blinking long and slow, and then begins carelessly floating upwards towards the square. With every inch, her shadow grows larger, darker.

Nico grins.

As fast as he dares, mindful of the chattery crabs still hiding along the edges of the seafloor, Nico darts across the path, keeping every stroke of his tail short and shallow to remain within the minke’s shadow. She, for her part, takes an extra-long breath, cheekily enjoying the sweet air of the wintery Surface, remaining up top until Nico is curled entirely in the tiny crack, careful to tuck his fins against the ice walls.

“Thank you,” he whispers, poking his head out.

She shifts, humming low and rumbly. She begins her descent, slower even than her climb to fresh air, and winks when she is low enough to be eye level. Nico waves one more time before turning and rushing, careful not to get stuck between narrow walls, through the tunnel. The ice is slick enough to almost push him through, which is as fun as it is disorienting. The isopods hadn’t mentioned that when he’d asked for directions, but he supposes they’re not quite big enough to notice. Nor are they very smart, so Nico will have to take the sacrifice. The crabs would have surely tattled to his father after one too many questions.

He’d worried, in the weeks he’d planned this, that he would grow tired in the middle of the tunnel and die, hands outstretched, trying to wiggle his way out either end. Usually during long swims he can simply float somewhere to rest, or lie against the back of a blue whale if there’s one around. (Aside from the scratchy barnacles a whale ride is almost pleasant.) But the tunnels are thin and long, and colder than the regular waters. If he pauses to catch his breath, how long would he have before the blood moved too sluggishly in his veins; before eternal sleep would pull as he used to on Bianca’s sweeping fins? A question he’d save usually for Seph, on her kind days, but they’d been few and far between. Lately the cold has made her irritable.

Thankfully, his worries had been unfounded. Energy thrums unusually in the cavity of his chest, pounding along with the erratic beat of his heart. Even if he grew tired the endless twitches of his tail would surely propel him forward enough to eventually escape the tunnel’s narrow confines. Even moreso when the end of the tunnel begins to grow brighter, burning his pupil-blown eyes — he’s close. Bright enough to be blue, the isopods had promised; nothing but sun past the widest expanse of the ice. Sun and churning, twirling water, disturbed flurries of floor flakes.

His heart grows loud enough to echo, with every swish pushing him closer to the exit.

When the tip of his head breaches the narrow end of the passage, he hesitates. The tunnel has widened, now, wide enough that he can just barely bend his tail up under him, fins brushing gently on the round icy walls. His hair has escaped from his tie in his rapid drag against the ice and it floats around his head, now, inky against the startling bright blue of the definitely-warmer water.

The stories his father would warn of him, when he and his sisters were young. The stories he still tells, when he catches Nico watching out the castle windows. Of snarling mers and sharpened coral, of flesh-feasters, of endless grudges. Of monsters from the depths and water hot enough to boil a mer alive.

He is fabricating. Or at least exaggerating; that kind of danger cannot be so adequately held behind a border. Not for so long.

Other mers must be gone by now, mustn’t they? So much fighting, so many wars…wiggling migration lines and danger after danger…endless scarcity of food, of shelter…even the relentless beat of the sun, with no ice for shelter. How could they survive? Seph braves the Current to pay her respects, as is her duty. The restless dead are worth the risk of the living; they demand that respect. But had her kin lain inside the Current, she surely would never breach it. She charges under Hades’ strictness, sours under his chains like the rest of them, but she returns. With great harry, usually. The Underworld is the only place the Ocean will accept his kind; will welcome them.

But a visit is, Nico is sure, warranted.

Without another lingering second to talk himself out of it, Nico darts forward. The moment he is free from the close-cropped ice walls he can feel the difference, the beat of the sun pressing into his skin, the giggling warmth of the shallow waters. The unbelievable blue of the water makes him lighter, makes the near-translucence of his skin even more obvious, the dark of his hair almost navy. He spins, once, to watch his scales catch the light, his fins flare out and swirl against each other in a spiral as dizzying as snail shells. The smile on his face is wide and unbidden, ache pulling at his cheek, and he can’t help quiet laughter, carried away by the roar of the Current.

He’s hardly a few dozen sponge-lengths from home, but he feels as if he’s woken up from a dream, floating within a brand-new planet.

All the worries that had plagued him burn to melting lava in the bright heat of the sun. They have no place to fester here, in the shimmering light, the roaring water. The flakes from the seafloor shoot upwards in a constant stream, unrested by the rapidly cycling streams, and they catch the sunlight in little burst of light, dotting Nico’s skin. He’s seen snow like this only in the deadliest of Surface storms, watched safely from the thinnest sheets of ice in the top of his father’s castle, but it is beautiful without the barrier; delicate.

There is no one beyond the Current. Only pods of dolphins, at this time of year, and the beautiful, brainless fish they brag of teasing; graceful whale sharks and pretty pink corals. Nico won’t stray too far. He only needs shells, glittering and iridescent, and a moment in the open sea. Hardly longer than a minute, really.

He needs to feel it. For himself. To say that he’s done it, if nothing else, to remember in his own head that there is somewhere outside his father’s domain.

With a resolute, steady nod to himself, Nico swims towards the Current.

It gets louder as he approaches. The churned-up snow gets thicker, too, so much so he swims nearly blind, and he is grateful for it. Much harder to back away from a threat he can hardly evaluate. He lets himself sink into it all, the roar of the current, the tickle of the flakes, the thick presence of them in the water, the lovely, bubbling warmth. They swirl around him, a pressurized swell of constancy, and drag him forward, swirling hands of promise, if chainbreakers, of swelling breaths of freedom. He churning current whips him around and he rides through it with all the bravery he can summon, loose somewhere in the expanse of his skull, churning identically to the water in the echo of his chest. He forces his tail to rest loosely, to ride along where the water takes him; swimming, he knows, is futile, fighting against the current useless. There is no force more powerful than the water, no pillar thicker or stronger than ice. The ocean will drive as she sees fit and Nico can only hope she finds him satisfactory enough, that she hears his silent begging, his endless longing. I want to see all I can, he whispers to her, eyes squeezed shut, teeth burrowing into his bottom lip, gills flaring. Please, even just a sponge-length into the open sea. Under the wide, sizzling sun.

It is only after an eternity in the brushing pound of the current that he is released. His skin almost aches with its absence, body reeling from the sudden loss of feeling; his ears, only, relish in the still-constant sound, if at all muffled. His head still spins as dizzy as the hermit crabs he and Hazel used to toss around, chasing after their warning claws and retreating legs. His hair billows in every direction.

Slowly, allowing himself to relish in the sensation, he blinks open his eyes. His fins are the first thing he sees, tangled as they are all around him, reaching far enough even for of them that the tip of it tickles his wrist. Some of his scales are missing, even, torn off in the power of the water, but he is almost pleased at the physical marker of this change. No matter what, pieces of him will have stayed in the Current. Even, perhaps, crossed the border entirely.

In looking under him he realizes the water is still churning — he has not, yet, made it entirely outside of the Current. Water roars in a wall behind him, circling around him in a giant, lengthy spiral. He hovers in the inside of the great churning river; hardly a sponge-length away from fully foreign waters. Once he crosses he has a few hours, at least, before his absence is noted; to swim around, to note, to gather. Or even simply to bask in the sun, swim up the the Surface and breathe air outside of what his father rules.

Smile spreading giddily across his face, he looks up, determined to find the weakest link of the Current wall and swim right through it.

And locks eyes with another mer, staring at him as if he’s a ghost.

#MER NICO MER NICO MER NICO #i have been obsessed w the antarctic ocean lately ISNT THIS SO SICK #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #nico di angelo #ghost king #mermaid au #mermay #mermaid nico #solangelo #nico di angelo/will solace #nico/will #will/nico #pjo hoo toa #my writing #fic #longpost

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xtruss · 11 months ago

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‘Like Going To The Moon’: The World’s Most Terrifying Ocean Crossing

— Julia Buckley, CNN | Monday February 5, 2024

The Drake Passage is feared by travelers and sailors alike. Gerald Corsi/iStockphoto/Getty Images

It’s the body of water that instils fear and inspires sailors in equal measure. Six hundred miles of open sea, and some of the roughest conditions on the planet – with an equally inhospitable land of snow and ice awaiting you at the end of it.

“The most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe – and rightly so,” Alfred Lansing wrote of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage across it in a small lifeboat. It is, of course, the Drake Passage, connecting the southern tip of the South American continent with the northernmost point of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Once the preserve of explorers and sea dogs, the Drake is today a daunting challenge for an ever-increasing number of travelers to Antarctica – and not just because it takes up to 48 hours to cross it. For many, being able to boast of surviving the “Drake shake” is part of the attraction of going to the “white continent.”

But what causes those “Shakes,” which can see waves topping nearly 50 feet battering the ships? And how do sailors navigate the planet’s wildest waters?

For oceanographers, it turns out, the Drake is a fascinating place because of what’s going on under the surface of those thrashing waters. And for ship captains, it’s a challenge that needs to be approached with a healthy dose of fear.

The World’s Strongest Storms

The Drake Passage can see waves of up to 49 feet. Mike Hill/Stone RF/Getty Images

At around 600 miles wide and up to 6,000 meters (nearly four miles) deep, the Drake is objectively a vast body of water. To us, that is. To the planet as a whole, less so.

The Antarctic Peninsula, where tourists visit, isn’t even Antarctica proper. It’s a thinning peninsula, rotating northwards from the vast continent of Antarctica, and reaching towards the southern tip of South America – the two pointing towards each other, a bit like a tectonic version of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.

That creates a pinch point effect, with the water being squeezed between the two land masses – the ocean is surging through the gap between the continents.

“It’s the only place in the world where those winds can push all around the globe without hitting land – and land tends to dampen storms,” says oceanographer Alexander Brearley, head of open oceans at the British Antarctic Survey.

Winds tend to blow west to east, he says – and the latitudes of 40 to 60 are notorious for strong winds. Hence their nicknames of the “roaring forties,” “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties” (Antarctica officially starts at 60 degrees).

But winds are slowed by landmass – which is why Atlantic storms tend to smash into Ireland and the UK (as they did, causing havoc, with Storm Isha in January buffeting planes to entirely different countries) and then weaken as they continue east to the European continent.

With no land to slow them down at the Drake’s latitude anywhere on the planet, winds can hurtle around the globe, gathering pace – and smashing into ships.

“In the middle of the Drake Passage the winds may have blown over thousands of kilometers to where you are,” says Brearley. “Kinetic energy is converted from wind into waves, and builds up storm waves.” Those can reach up to 15 meters, or 49 feet, he says. Although before you get too alarmed, know that the mean wave height on the Drake is rather less – four to five meters, or 13-16 feet. That’s still double what you’ll find in the Atlantic, by way of comparison.

And it’s not just the winds making the waters rough – the Drake is basically one big surge of water.

“The Southern Ocean is very stormy in general [but] in the Drake you’re really squeezing [the water] between the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere,” he adds. “That intensifies the storms as they come through.” He calls it a “funneling effect.”

Then there’s the speed at which the water is thrashing through. The Drake is part of the most voluminous ocean current in the world, with up to 5,300 million cubic feet flowing per second. Squeezed into the narrow passage, the current increases, traveling west to east. Brearley says that at surface level, that current is less perceptible – just a couple of knots – so you won’t really sense it onboard. “But it does mean you’ll travel a bit more slowly,” he says.

For oceanographers, he says, the Drake is “a fascinating place.”

It’s home to what he calls “underwater mountains” below the surface – and the enormous current squeezing through the (relatively) narrow passage causes waves to break against them underwater. These “internal waves,” as he calls them, create vortices which bring colder water from the depths of the ocean higher up – important for the planet’s climate.

“It’s not just turbulent at the surface, though obviously that’s what you feel the most – but it’s actually turbulent all the way through the water column,” says Brearley, who regularly crosses the Drake on a research ship. Does he get scared? “I don’t think I’ve ever been really fearful, but it can be very unpleasant in terms of how rough it is,” he says candidly.

Fear Breeds Fear

In 2010, tourist ship Clelia II declared an emergency after suffering engine failure in the Drake. Fiona Stewart, Garett McIntosh/AP

One other key thing that makes the Drake so scary: our fear of the Drake itself.

Brearley points out that until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, ships going from Europe to the west coast of the Americas had to dip round Cape Horn – the southern tip of South America – and then trundle up the Pacific coast.

“Let’s say you were shipping goods from western Europe to California. You either had to offload them in New York and do the journey across the US, or you had to go all the way around,” he says. It wasn’t just large cargo ships, either; passenger ships made the same route.

There’s even a monument at the tip of Cape Horn, in memorial of the more than 10,000 sailors who are believed to have died traveling through.

“The routes between the south of South Africa and Australia, or Australia or New Zealand to Antarctica, don’t really lie on any major shipping routes,” says Brearley. “The reason it’s been so feared over the centuries is because the Drake is where ships really have to go. Other parts [of the Southern Ocean] can be avoided.”

‘We Don’t Gamble’

Captain Stanislas Devorsine regularly crosses the Drake. Sue Flood/Ponant Photo Ambassador

Navigating the Drake is an extremely complex task that demands humility and a side of fear, says Captain Stanislas Devorsine, one of three captains of Le Commandant Charcot, a polar vessel of adventure cruise company Ponant.

“You have to have a healthy fear,” he says of the Drake. “It’s something that keeps you focused, alert, sensitive to the ship and the weather. You need to be aware that it can be dangerous – that it’s never routine.”

Devorsine made his Drake debut as a captain over 20 years ago, sailing an icebreaker full of scientists over to Antarctica for a research stint.

“We had very, very rough seas – more than 20 meter [66 feet] swells,” he says. “It was very windy, very rough.” Not that Ponant’s clients face anything like that. Devorsine is quick to point out that the comfort levels for a research ship – and the conditions it will sail in – are very different from those for a cruise.

“We are extremely cautious – the ocean is stronger than us,” he says. “We’re not able to go in terrible weather. We go in rough seas but always with a big safety margin. We’re not gambling.”

Even with that extra safety margin, though, he admits that crossing the Drake can be a hairy experience. “It can be very rough and very dangerous, so we take special care,” he says.

“We have to choose the best time to cross the Drake. We have to adapt our course – sometimes we don’t head in our final direction, we alter the course to have a better angle with the waves. We might slow down to leave a low pressure path ahead, or speed up to pass one before it arrives.”

The ‘Drake Shake’ and Broken Plates

Captains check the weather up to six times a day before departure to ensure a safe crossing. Jamie Lafferty

Of course, every time you get on a ship – whether it’s a simple ferry ride or a fancy cruise – the crew will already have meticulously planned the journey, checking everything from the weather to the tides and currents. But planning for a crossing of the Drake is on a whole new level.

Weather forecasting has improved in the two decades since Devorsine’s first ride, he says – and these days crew start planning the voyage while passengers are making their way to South America from all over the globe.

Sometimes they leave late; sometimes they head back early, to beat bad weather. Devorsine – who makes the return journey about six to eight times per year – estimates that the unusually calm “Drake lake” effect happens once in every 10 crossings, with particularly rough conditions (that “Drake shake”) once or twice in every 10 journeys.

Of course, he knows what’s in store long before the passengers reach the ship.

“We look ahead to have the best option to cross. Normally I look at the weather 10 days or a week before, just to have an idea of what it could be,” he says.

“Then I check the forecast once per day, then two or three days before departure I start looking at it twice per day. If it’s going to be a challenging passage you look every six hours. If you have to adjust your departure time, then you look at it very closely to be very accurate.”

His safety margin means that he’s calculating a route that will get you across not just alive, but also as comfortably as possible. Hearing an anecdote about broken crockery and furniture on another operator, he sighs, “That’s a bit too far for me.”

“Before you have any issue with a storm, you have to keep a comfortable ship,” he says. The safety margin is to be sure that the guests will enjoy being in Antarctica, and that we won’t turn around because we have a problem… like injured people.”

In extreme conditions, he orders extra weather advice from Ponant HQ, but if you’re imagining the staff on the bridge desperately radioing for advice as waves batter the ship, think again.

“It would never happen to be in the middle of the Drake with bad conditions, needing assistance from headquarters because it would mean we didn’t have any safety margin before departure. When we cross and it’s going to be challenging, we have a big safety margin and the ship is not at all in danger.”

They are in contact with headquarters with high level satellite antennae throughout the crossing, with both satellite and radio backup if needed – Devorsine says he can’t imagine ever losing contact, whatever the weather.

Antarctica cruise: The last frontier for a big at-last luxury adventure

A Dangerous Thrill

Aurora Expeditions' Greg Mortimer ship has a patented bow to make a Drake crossing more stable. Tyson Mayr/Aurora Expeditions

Devorsine, who now spends 90% of his time sailing in polar waters, feels at home on the Drake. “When I was a little child, I read books about the maritime adventures of sailors and polar heroes,” he says. “I was attracted by tough things – I like challenges. This is why I followed the path to be able to sail in these areas.”

His first experience of the area was doing a “race around the world” in a sailboat as a youngster, heading south from his native France and rounding Cape Horn.

“It was my dream because it’s difficult, dangerous and challenging,” he says.

He’s not the only one. Some guests are drawn to Antarctica trips because of the tough journey. “I guess [they] are attracted by these areas [of the Southern Ocean] because it’s wild, it can be rough, and it’s a unique experience to go there,” he says.

Not everone’s a thrill-seeker though. As managing director of Mundy Adventures, an adventure travel agency, Edwina Lonsdale is dealing with a clientele already used to discomfort – yet she says crossing the Drake is a “conversation topic” during booking.

“it’s something we would raise to make sure people are completely aware of what they’re buying,” she says. “[Going to Antarctica] is a huge investment – you need to talk through every aspect and make sure nothing’s an absolute no.”

Lonsdale advises that passengers nervous of feeling sick should choose their ship carefully. In the past, vessels heading to Antarctica tended to be uncomfortable metal boxes built to take a heavy beating. But in recent years, companies have introduced more technically advanced vessels: like Le Commandant Charcot, which was the world’s first passenger vessel with a Polar Class 2 hull – meaning it can go deeper and further into the ice in polar regions – when it debuted in 2021.

Two of Aurora Expeditions’ ships, the Greg Mortimer and Sylvia Earle, use a patented inverted bow, designed to slide gently through the waves, reducing impact and vibration and improving stability, rather than “punching” through the water as a regular bow shape does, which makes the bow rock up and down.

Lonsdale says that the fancier the vessel and the offerings onboard, the more distractions you’ll have if bad weather hits. Newer boats often have more spacious rooms and bigger windows so that you can watch the horizon, which helps to lessen seasickness. If the budget allows, she says, book a suite – you won’t just get more space, you’ll (likely) have floor-to-ceiling windows, too.

But a word of advice – she recommends a careful selection not just of the right operator for you, but of the ship itself.

“Just because a company has a fleet with a very modern ship doesn’t mean the whole fleet will be like that,” she says.

‘Act Before You Start Spewing’

At Cape Horn there's a monument marking the 10,000 sailors thought to have died navigating the Drake. DreamPictures/Photodisc/Getty Images

So you’ve conquered your fears, booked your ticket and you’re about to set sail. Bad news: the captain is predicting the Drake shake. What to do?

Hopefully you’ve come prepared. Most ships have ginger candies on offer during bad weather, but bring your own, as well as any anti-seasickness medication you want to take. Some passengers swear by acupressure “seeds”: tiny spikes, attached to your ears with a sticking plaster, designed to stimulate acupuncture points. Some ships offer acupuncture onboard; alternatively you can get it done beforehand, since the seeds last for some time.

Devorsine’s top tips are to keep your eyes on the horizon, hold onto the handrail when walking around, be careful around doors, and “don’t jump out of bed.”

Jamie Lafferty, a photographer who leads excursions on Antarctic cruises, says that of his 30-odd crossings, “I’ve had one where it felt like I was going to fall out of bed and that was the second time, way back in 2010 when there was a lot more guesswork involved. Crossing the Drake Passage is much, much more benign than it used to be thanks to the accuracy of modern forecasting models and stabilizers on more modern cruise ships. This doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth, but it’s vastly less chaotic and unpredictable than it used to be.”

His top tip? “Take seasickness medication before heading out into open sea – once you start spewing, tablets aren’t going to be any use.”

Warren Cairns, senior researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, has a bit of extra help.

“The only thing that works for me is going to the ship’s medic for a scopolamine patch,” he says. “It’s so rough, normal seasickness pills are just to get me to the infirmary.” Although he has it worse than the average tourist – on trips to Antarctica, their research ships have to pause for hours to take samples. “The waves come from all sorts of directions as the thrusters keep it in place,” he says. “When you’re underway it’s a much more regular motion.”

Lonsdale says it’s important not to fight it if you feel ill: “Just go to bed.” But equally, she says, don’t expect it: “It may be calm. You may not feel ill.”

People suffer differently from seasickness she says. “The Pacific has very long, slow swells, Channel crossings [between the UK and France] have quite a bouncy experience. Lots of people say crossing the Drake in very rough weather is uneven enough to not make them ill at all.” On that plate-smashing crossing, for example, this reporter – who was watching 40-foot waves from the observation deck – never got sick.

Remember that however it feels, you’re safe. “There’s an extraordinary level of safety in the build of those ships doing this,” says Lonsdale. Add in the safety margins that the likes of Devorsine build in, and you’re in uncomfortable, but not dangerous, territory.

And if all else fails, remember why you’re there.

“The motivation and excitement to discover those latitudes is very important to fight the seasickness,” says Devorsine. Lonsdale agrees.

“If you were going to the moon, you’d expect the journey to be uncomfortable but it’d be worth it,” she says. “You just have to think, ‘This is what I need to get from one world to another.’”

#World 🌎#Ocean 🌊 World 🌎#Terrifying Ocean 🌊#World’s Strongest Storms ☔️ ☔️ ☔️#Drake Passage #Ernest Shackleton #Antarctica 🇦🇶#The Antarctic 🇦🇶 Peninsula #Oceanographer Alexander Brearley | British 🇬🇧 Antarctic Survey.#Fear #Drake Shake | Broken Plates #Dangerous Thrill #Cape Horn #Actions | Alertness‼️ 🚨 🔔#Warren Cairns #Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council | Italy 🇮🇹#Julia Buckley | CNN

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