The
Drake Passage or
Mar de Hoces -Sea of "
Hoces"- is the body of water between the southern tip of
South America at
Cape Horn,
Chile and the
South Shetland Islands of
Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the
Atlantic Ocean (
Scotia Sea) with the southeastern part of the
Pacific Ocean and extends into the
Southern Ocean. It is named after 16th century English
privateer Sir Francis Drake, although he never sailed the Passage, opting instead for the less turbulent
Strait of Magellan. It was the Spanish navigator
Francisco de Hoces who discovered and first sailed this passage in 1525
[1].
For this reason, some Spanish, Mexican, Argentinean and Chilean historians and sources call it Mar de Hoces (Sea of Sickles) after Francisco de Hoces. The second recorded European voyage through the passage was that of the Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten in 1616.
The 800 km (500 miles) wide passage between Cape Horn and Greenwich Island is the shortest crossing from Antarctica to the rest of the world's land. The boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is sometimes taken to be a line drawn from Cape Horn to Snow Island (130 km (80 miles) north of mainland Antarctica). Alternatively the meridian that passes through Cape Horn may be taken as the boundary. Both boundaries lie entirely within the Drake Passage.
The other two passages around Cape Horn, Magellan Strait and Beagle Channel, are very narrow, leaving little room for a ship, particularly a sailing ship, to maneuver. They can also become icebound, and sometimes the wind blows so strongly no sailing vessel can make headway against it. Hence most sailing ships preferred the Drake Passage, which is open water for hundreds of miles. The very small Diego Ramirez Islands lie about 50 km (30 mi) south of Cape Horn.
