Sunday, 16 January 2011 – Cape Horn

DISAPPOINTING DRAKE

Well, what a disappointment – I didn’t get any action last night! And today wasn’t much better. Once again, Drake’s Passage proved to be more like Drake’s Lake, overcast but pretty calm. I was hoping to see a bit of a swell and have a bit of rocking and rolling, but it wasn’t going to happen. I shouldn’t complain as I’m sure the majority of passengers were very happen with the conditions.

And fortunately I already have my ‘war stories’ from my first cruise if I ever need to one-up someone (unless they have actually been on a ship that sank). That was on the old lumbering Australis from Southampton to Sydney in the 70’s where we had extremely rough seas around the Cape of Good Hope, resulting in one death directly related to the rolling ship, a burial at sea for a death due to natural causes, a mutiny (well, technically a strike somewhere in the Indian Ocean where the second seating guests had to raid the kitchens for food when the crew walked off the job), being strapped into our bunks at night, etc. etc. The crew were still talking about my cruise 2 years later! Being young and invincible at the time, it didn’t put me off cruising.

And speaking of no action, several days ago I went to the singles and solos lunch and sat with a nice group of ladies. I’m sure there are single men on this cruise but I bet they put their heads in the door of the dining room, took one look at the number of women only tables, became very, very afraid, and hightailed it out of there.

Anyway, with calm seas and not much to see today until later in the evening, I listened to lectures on icebreakers, the history of discovery voyages around the horn and what to see in Ushuaia. This exhausting program required a couple of power snoozes throughout the day to sustain me.

Coming up to 8 pm we approached Cape Horn. Unfortunately the skies weren’t conducive to great photos but I’ve attached a few anyway. The longitude running through the highest point of Cape Horn is where it is acknowledged that the Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean, hence usually very rough seas.




Cape Horn

  

Where east meets west - the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans merge here.