We made it back to Houston yesterday at 7:00AM.  Now that I have spell checkers, a computer and a flat stable surface I will try to fill in the details and prove that we actually did this.  Right now, I don't entirely believe it.  So, let's start with the boat:

This is my first mate, June, starting to layer up for the journey.  Actually, the weather as we depart from Ushuaia was cool and calm.  Hard to get great pictures from a boat that you are on, so I will give you a link here to the Spirit of Sydney website, www.spiritofsydney.net, in for more details. 

And here is a photo of Pascal, our actual boat first mate, organizing the sails as we depart for the Beagle Channel.  In the foreground, with dreadlocks, is Kris, an amazingly enthusiastic and optimistic young man from Martha's River, Australia.  Grant, our captain, has his back to us and the third man in the cockpit is Doug, a 59 year old Aussie from Melbourne.

And here is Jess, our Aussie emergency room nurse, who is demonstrating the 'survival suit'.  Apparently if you have 15 minutes to suit up, this doubles your chance of surviving a fall overboard in the Southern Ocean from 1 percent to 2 percent.  Poor Jess, the Drake Passage was not kind to her.  Her head is in a bucket for most of our pictures of her over the next 5 days.  I will spare you those photos. 

First anchorage, all is calm and perfect in the world: