After reluctantly leaving Palmer Station on Friday evening, we sailed west, then north/northwest through the Bellinghausen Sea. I found this picture from the Palmer Station webcam, that shows their view of our ship, complete with icebergs (sorry, couldn’t resist one more shot of Antarctica).
Eventually, on Sunday, we made it to the Drake Passage and shook our way north to the southernmost part of South America, Cape Horn. Named by a Dutchman in 1616 for the Dutch town of Hoorn, the Cape is on the small Horn Island, only about 5 miles long.
I’ll spare you the details of what makes Cape Horn such a treacherous place to land or even sail around – but it’s fascinating and you really should look it up!! The danger requires all ships to have a Cape Horn pilot on board before approaching, so we sailed north past the Cape, picked up our pilot, then sailed back south to the Cape – circled in red (the yellow line is the ship’s path).
There is nothing there, except a lighthouse with a house for the keeper, a chapel, a small supply shed, a Chilean flag, and a memorial to the estimated 10,000 lives lost off the Cape which depicts an Albatross in flight.
The contract to live and work there runs one year at a time, and a family of four is in their third year. I wonder if they might consider taking a few months off for vacation, and let me fill in while they’re gone? They could still have the salary, if I could have the solitude.
Leaving Cape Horn, we turned toward Ushuaia (pronounced Ush-u-why-a), Argentina, billed as “The End of the World”, the southernmost city in the world (although it seems that is being contested by the growing Puerto Williams, slightly further south). Located on the southwest of the Tierra del Fuego (Fire Island) that makes up that curved tip of South America, it is the jumping off point for most of the “Antarctic Expedition Sailings” that sail small ships (100ish to 200ish) to travel to and use small boats to land on, the Continent of Antarctica.
It feels very much like a gathering place for expeditions, with the craggy mountaintops rising up immediately on three sides and the Beagle Channel.
The channel was named for the HMS Beagle which sailed from England in 1831 on a five year exploration with Charles Darwin on board. Below is a replica of that ship that we saw at the next port.
Only 22 years old at the time, and an amateur naturalist, he was hired on board and used many of his observations to later develop his theories of evolution.
This was another tender port, so we took the small boat in to the port.
Near the end of the pier there is a memorial to the Italian, Yugoslavian, and Spanish people who helped settle that area.
There was a local artisans market that made us wish we lived in cold weather back home to justify buying some of the beautiful hand-knit alpaca and sheep wool seaters and hats. We walked around town, going into several local stores as well as tourist shops. We like to check out the local groceries and stores even more than the souvenir shops.
Apparently, no matter where or how far from the U.S. we travel, the most popular destination is the U.S. Route 66. I really should start a collection of these signs from around the world, as we have seen them in so many other places!
Also near the port is a memorial to the one time President of Argentina, Juan Perón and his wife, known as Evita. She seems to be, simultaneously, the most loved and hated woman of Argentina. Another interesting story I’ll let you research on your own!
The next two days were spent navigating through the beautiful Chilean Fjords. More on that and next stops in the next post.
Thanks again for joining us.