End of the world: Intrepid Spaniard to cross the Drake Passage in a rowing boat

OVER 3,000 kilometres on a rowing boat, against 12-metre waves, hurricane-speed winds, and extreme temperatures, a journey of up to a month and a half to reach the coldest part of Planet Earth – a part which, in fact, is so chilly it has never had any native human inhabitants.

That's not something which would appeal to the masses – and, incidentally, has never been done before, by anyone, ever.

But by early 2022, someone is expecting to have done it and, in the process, committed his home nation to the history books.

Antonio de la Rosa will soon be swapping his birthplace of Íscar, Valladolid province, in Castilla y León – a northern-central region in Spain which regularly gets snow at sea-level and is no stranger to sub-zero daytime temperatures, even double figures below – for a watery and icy wilderness that will make the climate in the town he left feel like Death Valley in comparison.

If he makes it, Antonio, 52, will be the first person in history ever to have crossed the Drake Passage – universally considered to be the world's most dangerous sea - from the southernmost tip of the Americas to the Antarctic, solo, and on a hand-powered craft.

And if he makes it and isn't put off rowing for life, next year he wants to sail by yacht from Elephant Island to South Georgia (in the South Shetland Islands), emulating Shackleton's famous feat, before crossing the island from west to east on foot with the aid of snow-shoes or cross-country skis.

White Christmas a certainty for Antonio this year

A keen explorer, experienced sailor, rower and boat-builder with a string of unlikely and terrifying adventures under his belt, Antonio has designed his own craft for what he calls 'the toughest challenge of his career'.

The Ocean Defender will take him on the voyage closest to impossible of all his extreme expeditions to date, but he will still need a 'Titanic mental effort' to complete it, he confesses.

Perhaps 'Titanic' is not the best choice of words in this case.

But icebergs are likely to be part of the scenery anyway over his 30- or 40-day trip, due to start this coming Thursday (December 9).

It means he will be one of the few Spaniards in 2021 to get a white Christmas.

Actually, this is not exactly rare, depending upon where you are in Spain. At altitudes of over 1,000 metres, especially far inland and in the north, snow is very probable in December – and, in fact, the higher up you are, very probable any time from about October to March. 

As Antonio is now living in the Sierra Norte mountain range in the Greater Madrid region, he may well have woken on Christmas morning before now and admired a winter wonderland scene straight off the cover of a Yuletide greeting card – but this year, it's practically guaranteed.

Surfing the circumference of the Arctic, skiing to Lapland...

He may not need our prayers and crossed fingers, though. 'Tough' as this 'challenge' feels to him, Antonio has successfully completed others that mere mortals, however fit and hardy, are unlikely to want to embark upon.

He was the first person ever, in all history, to cross the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco, California, to Hawaii, on a boat which was basically a paddle-surf board – a whole 4,700 kilometres in 76 days.

To put the distance into perspective, from the middle part of mainland Spain – anywhere from west to east – the Arctic Circle is about 3,000 kilometres away. The halfway point is approximately level with the east coast of the UK, The Netherlands or northern Belgium. Most of us, faced with a journey three times that of middle-Spain to The Netherlands would just book a flight, rather than hop on a glorified surf-board.

One supposes that at least Antonio's California-Hawaii crossing would have included some warm daytime weather, but he's fairly used to hostile temperatures: The intrepid traveller was also the first person on earth to complete the so-called Lapland Extreme Challenge, skiing his way between the Lapland region and the Arctic city of Rovaniemi, Finland, whilst pulling his own sledge with his luggage on, a total of 1,000 kilometres (roughly the distance from Valencia to Paris).

And at the time he navigated the whole of the Arctic Circle, the entire circumference, on his paddle-surf boat (first picture, by Luis Martínez, from Antonio's website) – just metres short of 731 kilometres, in 26 days – nobody else had ever done it before.

Delays mean harsher weather...and greater motivation

Getting ready to cross the ultra-perilous Drake Passage has already been a major feat before even leaving civilisation as the rest of us know it. Antonio has just reached southern Chile from Spain with his boat after an arduous two-month trip with his craft on board a shipping container, grappling with customs delays and a worldwide transport industry crisis, and triumphantly announced earlier this week on Instagram that the Ocean Defender was at last on the water, taking to the waves off Mansa Bay, for its operation and performance to be checked and crucial maintenance and adjustments identified and carried out.

The fact it has taken so long to get the Ocean Defender to Chile means Antonio's already-daunting feat is set to be harsher and harder than he had first planned for.

His initial intention was to set off from Cape Horn, bound for the South Shetlands – the nearest part of the Antarctic to the Americas - early in November, but the extra time involved in reaching base has put his journey back by over a month.

And weather and sea conditions are expected to be far worse in December than just after Hallowe'en.

Forecast gales this week meant he had to postpone the launch for a few days, and at this time of year, he is more likely to face similar meteorological phenomena once he is already en route.

“I hope to at least be able to tow the boat from the port in Punta Arenas, where it's currently moored, to the departure point on Cape Horn Island, the southernmost point of the Patagonia [the 'tail' of Chile and Argentina] and the closest to the Antarctic,” Antonio said on Wednesday.

At that moment, he still had eight days to go before his scheduled embarking.

“Despite everything, my motivation for trying to complete this expedition is still 100%,” Antonio assured.

“Having got through so many problems, delays and obstacles, it's all just spurred me on more than ever to row harder still and concentrate more on my aim of reaching the Antarctic under my own steam.”

Out of the frying pan and into the freezer: What awaits Antonio at his Antarctic destination

'Steam' might come in very handy once Antonio crosses the finishing line. The Antarctic, the sixth continent – an actual land-mass beneath the snow, unlike the Arctic which is purely ice and would disappear completely if this melted – is several degrees colder on average than the North Pole and has never had any indigenous population. Conditions have always been too harsh for human life to have evolved there, and the only people who have ever been in residence are, or were, expatriates – typically scientists on extended research projects, whose plans have never included a permanent move or to settle there as 'immigrants'.

Unlike the other five continents, Antarctica has no 'family' or 'resident' infrastructure, such as schools, towns, supermarkets or medical centres, no 'native' or 'official' language, and no government; different territories on the South Pole are 'owned' by numerous different countries, so any laws that might apply to persons based there would be those of the nation which owns the patch of ice they are presently standing on.

Although it's covered in snow and snow is usually pretty wet, the Antarctic is in fact so dry as a continent and with such near-zero humidity that, if it were to be cut out and sellotaped to any other part of the planet, it would be considered a 'desert'.

But it's too cold to qualify to be even a steppe – a desert-like terrain in temperate climates, such as those found across Russia – let alone a desert in the true sense; a 'steppe' has to reach a minimum average annual temperature of 14ºC.

Antarctica is a long way off 14ºC – its annual average temperature is about -57ºC, and its record low was detected on July 21, 1983, when thermometers plummeted to an air temperature of -89.2ºC.

Satellite-based thermometers at ground level have registered figures as low as -93.2ºC (on August 10, 2010), which is the same date as the lowest temperature in the history of planet earth was recorded – one particular Antarctic plateau revealed a ground figure of -98ºC, although this was not recognised officially until 2018.

Although July and August are the height of the southern-hemisphere winter, the Antarctic does not have seasons as we know them elsewhere; the warmest parts, which are on the coast, are usually around -10ºC, rising to about -55ºC at altitudes inland; January on the coast can be as warm as -3ºC and August, around -26ºC; southern-hemisphere summers are nearly always below freezing, and the warmest figure on record for the central hub, the South Pole 'proper', was on Christmas Day a decade ago when the mercury soared to -12.3ºC.

At sea-level, outwards from the South Pole and on the warmer coastal parts, occasional 'heatwaves' during the Austral summer have seen thermometers shoot up to 15ºC.

To date, even though the last couple of years have seen worrying episodes of parts of the Antarctic completely devoid of snow – a clear indicator of climate change – the record hottest temperature has never been surpassed since January 30, 1982, when the mercury measured 19.8ºC, a figure typical of a Mediterranean autumn and where one would be completely comfortable without a coat on.