We left the icebergs behind us, starting 2 full days at sea accross the Drake passage
On our way back, the seas are a little rough but still the Drake Passage seems to be quite gentle for us. Still, we can't really walk inside without holding the handrail, as the waves are getting more tumultous.
With plenty of time to spend on the ship we get a chance to visit the machine rooms, and the science labs. It's like a space ship down at the 3rd floor, with state of the art electronics and skilled personal.
The Commandant Charcot is the most powerful ice-breaking ship in the world, a PC2 class. Only russian nuclear ship likely beat the amazing technical capabilities of the Charcot.
It is the first deep polar exploration cruise ship to be equippped with a hybrid liquefied natural gas propulsion system. Using GNL (natural liquefied gaz) and decarbonized Diesel, to create 22,000 horsepowers of thrust, with 74 cylinders, and 2 propellers electric motors weighting 300 tons. Not forgetting 40 tons of batteries to store and power the ship on an hybrid system. Actually there are really 2 ships in one, as all the systems have a 100% redundancy systems in case of malfunction.
Science on Board
The ship is equipped with its own laboratories and hosts scientific researchers in discipline such as glaciology, oceanography and marine biology. We could see them disembarking with us, to take sample of ice, waters, and dig the ground to take ice-carrot. It is an amazing opportunity to have such a platform to take them in remote places were sometimes they will be the first ones to be able to observe, collect and analyse the environment.
Discover more here:
(disclaimer: this blog is not sponsored nor it receives any commercial compensation from any party of any kind).
Cape Horn
Tomorrow we should pass the mythic Cape Horn, early in the morning. Hopefully, the horizon will be clear so I can get a good shot of it. Then, I will do a last blog post as we reach back to Ushuaia and disembark on the land of Argentina,