Drakes Passage

Look at the bottom of a globe.  Find Antarctica and check out what is above it.

Water.  No land, just water.  Look any other place on the globe and as you turn the globe you will find land masses that serve as wind breaks and current deflectors.  At the bottom of the globe there is none of that.  The currents and the wind are free to run wild and unobstructed.

The Bottom of the Earth (Google Earth)

This is the only place on the planet where there is nothing to deflect the wind and the water and as a result, this is the place on the planet with the most powerful winds and the roughest seas.

If you examine the place where the Antarctic Peninsula reaches up toward South America, you see that this is a choke point where the path between Antarctica and any continent to the north is the smallest.  There is an 800 kilometer (480 mile) gap between the two continents and all the water that pushes up against South America can only squeeze by on the bottom through this tiny gap. 

The result of that is some of the strongest and most dangerous currents on the planet.  That should be enough to make us understand why the passage is scary, but there is more!

The currents in the Pacific ocean come down along the west coast of South America and then turn back up north, then east when they push against Antarctica.  Meanwhile, the currents of the Weddell sea run in a counter clockwise direction and are heading westward as they meet the eastward current from the Pacific Ocean.

So what happens when a powerful current heading eastward off the Pacific meets a powerful current heading westward off the Weddell sea?

Well...let's just say that memories are made.