Cape Horn Excursion
I, the albatross that awaits at the end of the world…
I am the forgotten soul of the sailors lost,
rounding Cape Horn from all the seas of the world.
But die they did not in the fierce waves,
for today towards eternity, in my wings they soar,
in the last crevice of the Antarctic winds.— Sara Vial (Chilean author and poet)
No one was very happy about rising early to gear up for a 7:00 a.m. attempted landing at Cape Horn. On the last two cruises to the area, our ship encountered 100 km/hour winds and they were not able to beach the zodiacs. (For those of you that don’t know, Cape Horn is where the Atlantic and the Pacific ocean meet between Antarctica and South America, creating unique and intense atmospheric conditions — translation: roughest seas in the world.)
We were lucky and our dawn excursion was met with lovely weather (for the southern end of the world) and we were able to land, eradicating our early morning crabbiness! Pictured here from Cape Horn are the light house, two views of the memorial to dead sailors in the shape of an albatross, an old chapel, and few shots from the area where we landed the boats.
You can see from these photos how quickly the weather changes by looking at the sky!
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