Antarctica Log Book: Cape Horn

Navigational Information: At approximately 7:00am, Celebrity Infinity will be reaching the Southern tip of Cape Horn. The duration of viewing will be influenced by prevailing weather conditions.

Position: 55*20 S, 0'65*45 W
Temperature: 46*F, 8*C Sea Temp: 45*F, 7*C
Weather conditions: Overcast
Wind: N 10 knots, 20 mph, Waves 4 ft
Depth: 547 fathoms/1,000 meters/3,280 feet
Speed: 20 knots, 23 mph NE 0'49*
Distance from Cape Horn @ 12:00pm: 66 NM (76 mi)
Distance to Puerto Madryn, Argentina: 792 NM (911 mi)
Pass Strait of Magellan at 1:30pm, going through/between Los Estados Islands and Tierra del Fuego



We were really lucky with the weather today because the water was so calm - these seas are known to be the roughest in the world (famed for many shipwrecks.) Cape Horn is a pretty cool rock, a big crag sticking out of the water ... but it is just a rock. The Isle de Hornos also has a little station, house and a chapel - apparently one family lives there year-round. I don't think I could take it, it's so desolate and removed from civilization. The neat part would be seeing whales ... but we didn't even see those! The terrain is really rough, I have no idea how it would be possible to dock a boat there!



Cape Horn, Chile
A Brief History (as read in Celebrity Today):
In the 1500s a handful of explorers, including Francisco de Hoces and Sir Francis Drake, sailed close to Cape Horn, but it was not until the 17th century that the cape was successfully navigated. As part of the search for an alternative to the Strait of Magellan, a Dutch merchant and his shipmaster friend pooled their money and purhased a pair of ships, the Eendracht and the Hoorn. They left Holland in the summer of 1615 for South America and became the first to sail around the southern tip of the continent in early 1616.
Clipper ships soon became the vehicle of choice for rounding the Horn, albeit not without some trepidation due to the extreme wind and weather conditions. By the late 19th century the Germans had devised a steel hull for their commercial ships that took the treachery out of navigating the Horn, and continued to use the passageway even after the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.
Ironically, despite the heavy sea traffic that followed in the wake of the Dutch discovery, it took another 200 years for the continent of Antarctica to be discovered, even though it lay just 400 miles to the South.


Strait of Magellan