Cape Horn

By clicking on the photo, you can enlarge it a little.

On March 8 we rounded Cape Horn. We all have heard of the dangerous waters around the Cape and how many early sailing ships were lost making this passage. Among the reasons are the season when they were sailing and the direction they sailed. Most of the early sailing ships were coming from Europe and therefore sailing west - into the prevailing winds - and if it was the wrong season, storms here are fierce.

So our voyage seemed anti-climactic because seas were so calm we completely circumnavigated the island the Cape is on. In the Amsterdam's last 10 trips, they have been able to do this only twice. On the previous trip, dishes were knocked off the dining tables!

The first photo shows a group of orange-clad tourists climbing the stairs to the naval station and the albatross monument to sailors who lost their lives rounding the Horn (for the story of the monument: http://www.caphorniers.cl/CH_monument.htm). The albatross is on the northern part of the island and the second photo is the very southern tip of the island and is Cape Horn. At this point we were 600 miles from Antarctica.