Day 46 – Sailing around Cape Horn!

This morning, from 7 am until about 8.30, we completed one of marine travel’s big adventures; we sailed all around Isla Hornos (or Cape Horn).

For those who didn’t know (and I didn’t), Cape Horn is actually a forbidding, barren island of magnificent solitude, located at the very southern tip of South America. It is the meeting point of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and is regarded as one of the most inhospitable places on earth. When we sailed around it this morning, it was shrouded in thick fog. The sea was agitated but not frightening. The Rocky cliffs and peaks emerged through the gloom, barely perceptible at first, at best a dark forbidding mass, battered through the millennia by wild seas and savage winds. Knowing how many sailors (apparently as many as 10,000) have lost their lives here, the whole effect is rather eerie. The weather here is extremely unpredictable as is the ocean. The average annual temperature is 5.2°C and it rains for an average of 278 days a year, dumping an average 79 inches of water on the island annually.

Cape Horn was discovered on the 25th of January 1616 by Dutchman Willem Schouten. He named it Kap Hoorn after his hometown in the Netherlands. The Cape Horn route became the main trading route for the next 300 years although its treacherous conditions have led to the loss of an estimated 10,000 lives. Since the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 there are no longer any regular commercial trade routes around the Horn.

The region comprises a perfect storm of perilous, geographical and meteorological factors. Southwest of the Horn the ocean bed rises sharply from 4020m to 100m within a couple of kilometres and this, combined with the ferocious westerly winds, (the roaring 40s and furious 50s), generates enormous and unpredictable waves occasionally reaching 30m high. The Cape also lies within iceberg range. The winds are exacerbated by the funnelling effect of the Andes Mountains and the Antarctic Peninsula. The prevailing winds below 40° south blow from west to east almost uninterrupted and the convergence of two major tidal currents, the Antarctic circumpolar current and the Brazil current generates turbulent waters.

The only evidence of human activity is a residence operated by the Chilean Navy, a chapel and a lighthouse. The only residents are the lighthouse-keeper and his family.

After breakfast Bridge persuaded Paul to go to water-colour class. Although thoroughly unconvinced that this pursuit would offer an acceptable activity to while away our sea days, Paul loved it!! In fact we went back for the afternoon lesson (see results below). ☺️

After circumnavigating Cape Horn, Queen Victoria retraced her steps and sailed back into the Beagle Channel, a strait at the very southern tip of South America, which forms the border between Argentina and Chile. The channel is named after HMS Beagle following its first survey of the south of South America from 1826 to 1830. Charles Darwin was a passenger on the ship’s subsequent voyage two years later.

Finally this evening at around 8.30 we sailed through the Beagle Channel’s Glacier Alley. Although it was almost dark, we did manage to stare in wonder at them and take a few photos.

All in all today has been one of the best days of the voyage so far. The awe inspiring landscapes and the timeless glaciers make one sit back, pause for thought and contemplate one’s own insignificance.