Around the Horn on a South America Cruise: Rounding the Horn to the End of the World

Love the happy feet of los penguinos!

Magellenic Penguins

Hola Penguinos! Today, we spent the morning playing with the penguins. Yes, from Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in Chile and our 3^rd port of call, we took a 2-hour ferry hop over to Magdalena Island to see the famous Magellenic Penguins. These black & white colored birds stand about 2 feet high and nest on this island in shallow holes in the ground that they dig and then burrow into. Petrels and gulls strut shamelessly among the penguin herd, looking for an opportunity to find an unattended penguin nest, so they can steal their eggs for a quick and tasty meal.

Lone penguin preening himself on
Magdalena island

We strolled along the perimeter of the island, observing penguins sitting on eggs, preening themselves, protecting their chicks, and even crossing the path right in front of us on their way to the ocean for a swim and a meal. These are the barking penguin type, and once they get a-hollering, their honking sounds kind’a like Chewbaca from Star Wars sounding off!

Penguin in burrow awaits the hatching of her eggs

Magellenic Penguins are migratory creatures who only come here in the summer for the mating season. Remarkably, these birds come back to re-nest in the exact same burrow year after year. They also mate for life but will take a new mate if one dies.

Penguins ready to go for a swim

We observed these critters clumsily waddling from place to place on the island and were astounded by their about-face speed and agility when they found their way into the sea. These stumble bums took off like little torpedoes once they hit the water! They became some of the fastest swimmers we have ever seen. It makes sense that their streamlined frames are perfectly designed to be extremely mobile under the water. Their seemingly frictionless bodies in water can easily outswim most predators and catch small fish for their meals. They also need to be hardened swimmers to handle the long winter migrations to warmer climes like Brazil.

Elegant Croatian mausoleum
of Cementerio Municipal

Punta Arenas Cementerio Municipal

With some time to spare after checking out the penguins, we hopped in a taxi cab to take a look at the local cemetery, “Cementerio Municipal”. Many of you know that we have a cemetery fetish, and this plot had some very elegant mausoleums; you see, some of the wealthiest immigrant families tried to outdo one another with bigger and better monuments to their dead. We were intrigued by the mix of European names – Italian, some English, but many Croatian. We recognized them as the names ending in “sic” -- a dead give-away (no pun intended), just like Supsic which we believe is also of Croatian origin. Turns out that the largest percentage of Europeans who immigrated here came from Croatia. Maybe we have some cousins here in this part of the world? Heh, heh.

Tomb of the Unknown Indian

We also saw “The Tomb of the Unknown Indian,” a gravesite dedicated to the indigenous people who once lived here. The statue of the Indian is considered to have miraculous powers and is surrounded by plaques left in gratitude by those who believe the Unknown Indian granted their wishes.

Espana Glacier in Glacier Alley

Glacier Alley

One of the great highlights of this cruise is the scenic sightseeing from the ship. As we sailed through the Beagle Channel (named for the ship that brought Charles Darwin to these parts of the world), we entered the appropriately named “Glacier Alley”. Wow! These were the most magnificent glaciers we have ever seen, and they kept appearing, one after another. Our favorites were Espana with a stunning set of waterfalls fronting the glacial expanse, and Italia, the widest glacier whose sparkling blue ripples flowed down into the channel.

Magnificent Italia Glacier in Glacier Alley

We have been so fortunate regarding the weather, and the lighting on the glaciers has been spectacular. It was exhilarating to be out on the open deck not only taking in the sights but breathing the crisp, fresh air that reminded us of weather on top of some of the mountains that we’ve skied.

Ushuaia from the harbor

Ushuaia, the city at the end of the world!

Ushuaia is known as “Fin del Mundo,” or, the end of the world. Hard to believe, but here we are in Ushuaia, Argentina on the Island of Tierra del Fuego in the southern most city in the world! It’s a very colorful and a pretty town, nestled next to the water’s edge with the snow-capped mountains of the Darwin Range in the background.

Welcome to Ushuaia, city at the end of the world
(Note the MS Zaandam in the background)

Ushuaia was originally a penal colony where all the worst Argentinian bad guys were sent. Part of their punishment was being put to hard work building the city and infrastructure here. Great use of free labor, we thought! We strolled around the town on our own, glad for a break from some of our previously regimented tours.

Frank taunts a prison guard at the
former penal colony prison

We visited the Maritime Museum that is located in the old prison. One part of the museum contained restored cell blocks with descriptions and photos of former inmates, recreating the mood of gloomy imprisonment. The prison had no walls around it – where would an escapee go? Those who tried to get away either died in the attempt or gave up and came back. Life was not easy: prisoners were not allowed to smoke, receive letters, or READ (Anne is quite the reader, and says she would rather be shot than do without her reading material!).

Anne tells a prisoner that even though
he is cute, she can't help him break-out

Another part of the museum held miniature re-creations of the ancient ships that charted these waters, or disappeared trying. There are many stories here of those ships (450 known ships in total) that sank while exploring these tricky waters. The most recent sinking was in 1988 when the Logos went down right after the Chilean pilot left the captain on his own. Luckily, we had a Chilean pilot helping us out during the entire navigation of these most dangerous waters!

We ended our day in a café with wi-fi where we could finish up and send you all a blog update, chow down on a few delicious empanadas, and try out a Beagle beer brewed locally here in Ushuaia! Bet you can’t beat that! We also mailed a postcard to ourselves from the end of the world – will be interesting to see how long it takes to reach us.

El Horno and the Albatross Monument at its peak

Rounding “El Horno”

On the last day in November, our cruise ship rounded the infamous southern-most island known as “El Horno,” as it was dubbed by the Dutch. The Dutch called this island “The Hoorn” because the expedition to explore the southern end of S. America began in the Dutch town of “Hoorn”; unfortunately, when pronounced, the name translates into Spanish as "El Horno" (“The Oven”), which has no real meaning in connection with the island. So, when you next hear the phrase “around the horn”, you will know (or perhaps you already did know!), it is a reference to sailing south around this southern-most island of S. America.

Strange forbidding land that ancient mariners
rightly feared

It was raining pretty hard while we were out on the bow at 0600 this morning, but we were prepared for any & all weather conditions that this ship’s path would deal out. Also, the icy Antarctic air was bitter on the face and cut thru our clothing in a very short time as we stood there watching the events of the day unfold. We could see the lighthouse on the island called “The Horn”, where we understand a lighthouse keeper, his wife, and two children live all year round. That must be one lonely existence for that family! We hope they pay them a good salary!! We also saw the famous Albatross Monument high on the rock which is designed to withstand winds of up to 125 mph.

In and around the Horn, many jagged and nasty-looking rocks protruded from the ocean floor making it look like a place no man should explore. Such a strange and unique part of our planet!

Famed Cape Albatross hunts for food near our ship

Although there was lots of rain and freezing cold temps, the visibility at the Horn was considered excellent by our ship’s crew. The grayish weather of the early morning added to the drama of these foreboding waters. We couldn’t help but think about all the intrepid mariners who lost their lives here charting these waters and bringing goods to the new world. Somehow, it actually would have felt incongruous to see this strange and dangerous part of the world on a bright sunny day!

We became official Mariners when we rounded
Cape Horn on the MS Zaandam

We never thought about it before, but they don’t use GPS very much here, or anywhere near the magnetic pole for that matter. Not because of any availability problems, but because the GPS is too unreliable and needs too many corrections to be used as a navigational tool. It takes a very experienced navigator to incorporate any GPS data into his bag of tricks. “Eyes on the sea” rather than on computers screens are the preferred techniques to get safely thru these waters, just as it was for the ancient (and less ancient) mariners like Magellan, Drake, Fitzroy, Amundsen, Shackleton, et al.

More of the desolate Horn

At some point in the early morning, the ship’s horn sounded, scaring many birds into flight that were perched on the rocks nearby. The horn alerted all of us that we were crossing from the Pacific into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean, although bouncy, was not as rough as we had expected. We were told that we had experienced an unusually gentle rounding of the Horn. Rogue waves as high as 100 feet can hit these waters on less cooperative weather days. This has really been a charmed cruise thus far with much better weather than anyone expected!

The closest we got to Port Stanley in the Falklands (sigh)

A Peek at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

We may have gloated about our good weather a bit too soon. As we headed for the Falklands, the Captain announced that all this calmness was about to change. We experienced a night of gale force winds (60 knots, we were told), and powerful waves sloshing us around. Thru the night, the engineer in Frank wondered how much torsional force we could withstand from the very rough ocean on the hull and body of this ship, while Anne slept like a baby being rocked back-and-forth to sleep.

In the early morning, we anchored in the harbor outside Port Stanley in the Falklands, but unfortunately, the bitter, gale force winds continued with no sign of lessening, and Captain Wouter van Hoogdalem (yes, that’s his real name; we finally found a name harder to spell than our own! heh, heh) was forced to cancel our port stop. There was an inch of snow on the shore, as it had snowed during the morning hours before we had arrived. Since tenders were needed to shuttle us into port, it was deemed unsafe in the high winds to use them. The captain did a few test runs with the ship’s tenders, but they took on too much water while they were being tested. That was the death knell of our stop here, and any shore excursions on the Falklands. Naturally, we were disappointed, but safety comes first. The statistics show that only one in three of the cruise ships that attempt to stop here in the Falklands actually puts people ashore, so we knew ahead of time that it might not happen.

We did at least get a look and a photo of the city of Port Stanley while anchored in the harbor (so near and yet so far). Here are a couple of facts about this elusive destination. The Falklands are made up of two main islands and 750 smaller ones. 2900 people live here, along with about 500 sheep/resident. Although the Falklands have changed hands many times, the British have owned the island since 1833. Of course, we all know about the 74-day War in the Falklands that was precipitated when Argentina invaded the islands in 1982. Even though Great Britain is 8,000 miles away, Margaret Thatcher dispatched troops to defend the Crown. A peace was eventually negotiated by the Pope, and the Falklands remained under British control.

The biggest losers in the war were the whales which were often accidentally torpedoed, and the landscape which is now riddled with land mines. BTW in a referendum, the Falkland Islanders voted almost unanimously to stay with Great Britain. Only three people voted no, and everyone here wonders who those three wankers were! Wisely, nobody is talking so far.

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