Today we continue my What I Did On My Winter/Summer Vacation essay, moving south to Cape Horn.

Cape Horn

I’ve known about Cape Horn (Cabo de Hornos) for years, the Age of Exploration and how deadly the transit was at the bottom of the world. I’ve read about it so much and always in such a historical context that it was nearly mythical.

And to be fair, it is a place of near legend. One of the, or possibly the, most dangerous ship passages on the planet, the Cape experiences gale force winds nearly 30% of the time in winter, with drifting icebergs and steep waves — including frequent rogue waves of up to 100 feet (30 meters). Winds rushing unchecked across the whole of the Pacific are funneled into the Drake Passage by the Antarctic peninsula and the Andes mountains, just as the massive waves they create come into a shallower stretch of ocean and grow steeper.

At least 800 ships have died here, with over 10,000 mariners. This place did not get its reputation lightly. The Spanish, rather than shipping their gold back to Europe around the Horn, opted instead to carry their extremely heavy loot across the continent through hostile territory, thinking it less difficult and risky.

I’m sorry this post has been long in coming — for some reason the paying jobs had to take priority over the blog, silly but true — but I hope it’s worth the wait!

For decades, I’ve spoken of Antarctica as the crazy dream destination, exotic and fascinating and unlike anything else you can just hop in a car or plane and go to visit. In 2009, the Antarctic Treaty signatories agreed to update restrictions on tourism — a concept I understand and endorse, because we’ve seen what unchecked and unregulated tourists can do to places less fragile than Antarctica, and yet I decided that if I were going to go, I should do it.