The ship arrived early to anchor offshore Isla Hornos - the island of Cape Horn. We grabbed a hot drink and a snack before layering up and putting on life jackets to go ashore. It was a gloomy and showery morning with some wind as we went ashore. Once we climbed up the many stairways to the plateau on top we realized we’d been protected from the wind by the steep side of the island – the wind was strong enough to make walking a little tricky at times. Fortunately it was blowing cross-wise to the path to the Albatross Monument.
The monument honors the hundreds or thousands of sailors who have died trying to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice versa through the Drake Passage that is marked by Cape Horn.
I am the albatross that awaits you at end of the earth. I am the forgotten soul of the sailors who died crossing Cape Horn from all the seas of world. But they are not dead in the furious waves. Today they fly in my wings to eternity in the last trough of the Antarctic winds.
You may notice we are wearing life jackets on shore. This landing is quite tricky and the weather can change in minutes so there was the chance our visit would be recalled at any time and we’d have to scramble to get back onboard. Sometimes people on this cruise do not get to land here at all due to the conditions. In our case we were allowed to go to the monument, but not to the nearby lighthouse. I’m pretty sure it was because the path to the monument is perpendicular to the wind, but walking back from the lighthouse we would be facing very strong headwinds.
The wind never let up, but the clouds slowly thinned so that by the time everyone was back aboard the ship there were a few spots of blue sky.
We had breakfast once back onboard. Then there was a brief presentation about the Shackleton expedition, concentrating on the Endurance, followed by a short documentary produced several years ago by one of the big three broadcasters in the U.S. If you are not familiar with this story, it is well worth reading the Wikipedia article or finding a documentary because the survival of the all the men on this expedition was due to a combination of relentless determination in the face of adversity along with a generous sprinkling of miraculous luck.
We got to take a tour of the ship’s bridge.
After a few hours of cruising we arrived in Wulaia Bay on Navarino Island to go ashore there.
From the Wikipedia page about this large island:
Navarino has one of the most dense archeological concentrations in the world. This is believed to be due to the fact that the Yaghan were nomadic, so set up numerous settlements, and the island was little disturbed by outsiders until late in the 19th century.
In 1859 there was a misunderstanding or conflict between the Yaghan and some missionaries along with the crew of a ship that had brought them to Wulaia Bay that led to the Yaghans killing all but one of the missionaries and crew members. The building, which was part of a Chilean naval base, is now a museum interpreting the massacre and the Yaghans more generally. There are also some interpretive displays outside. There is a mail box in the museum that operates on the traveler system: you hope that someone going to or near to the destination will transport your mail, or hand it off to someone else who will get it there. I left a postcard there, and Sandy picked one up because the address is not far from her home.
We hiked through the woods up to a nice overlook where we watched and heard a thunderstorm approaching.
We made it back down the hill and almost got to the ship before it started raining. We had a nice last dinner aboard the ship – it would arrive and dock in Ushuaia very late that night.