Cape Horners ! |
| Friday, 12 March 2004 |
| From onboard:
A few minutes after noon, the sky cleared to the north to reveal through low broken clouds the silhouette of Hermite Island, the western-most of the small Chilean island group most famously known for its sister to the south, Cape Horn. On a clear day, you can see these high bluffs for more than twenty miles, but until I confirmed it with Alan, who was below monitoring the radar, it was a toss up whether I was looking at land eight miles away or just another bank of clouds. For the next half hour, we both stood spellbound as the shoreline slipped in and out of sight and were left to wonder how the early explorers ever worked up the nerve to sail in these waters. As we got closer, the backing breeze forced our course to the north and we sailed to within clear sight of the dramatic shoreline before gybing for the Horn. Although we hadn't seen the sun for days, the clouds suddenly lifted, then cleared, and an hour later we rounded Cape Horn in bright sunshine.
Even apart from the epic tales and the near mythology that surround this Southern outpost, Cape Horn is a riveting sight with jutting crags and rock strewn ravines that rise up from the sea. We sailed in closer than may have been prudent, just a mile of its southern-most point, but it was hard not to be lured in by the sheer grandeur of this seafaring icon. We reported via VHF to the Cape Horn Control, and were a little surprised to find that despite near perfect English, the conversation didn't waver one bit from the script: destination; departure port; call sign; number of persons on board. I'm quite sure discipline in the Chilean navy runs high, but perhaps they've taken the extra precaution of screening out the poets, the dreamers, and those with the more active imaginations from this particular tour of duty. Or, it could have been that we were much happier to be there than he was!
The sky is crystal clear tonight and it's cold, and I poked my head up after dinner to find ourselves under the watch of the Southern Cross to our south and Orion to our north. It feels good to be back in the Atlantic, like one step closer to home, and that feeling was reinforced today with the ship's clock jumping ahead another hour to Eastern Standard Time. Quite remarkable, given that three weeks ago we weren't even in the same day. In terms of distance, I still haven't reached the halfway point between NZ and the UK, but with the deep satisfaction of having reached our first major objective, it's certainly starting to feel that way.
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