Sailing 'Round the Horn

Cape Horn--Fabled and feared route of the clipper ships and merchant vessels. Stories of terrible weather and seas so deathly that many never survived and many who did swore never to travel that route again. We nearly slept through it.

Not to minimize what sailors of the past have endured or died for, but today's seas were some of the calmest we have had the last week. The wind....now that was pretty strong, about 40 knots (46 mph). But snug in our stateroom, we almost slept through the whole thing.

When I left you yesterday evening, we were still docked in Ushuaia due to the wind. We finally left sometime after oh-dark-thirty, which wakened us briefly, but we essentially slept through that, as well. At 3 a.m. I was awakened again, this time by the thrusters, peaked out the window and saw that we were not moving but the side thrusters were holding us in place, crosswise in the channel. After about 45 minutes, we turned downwind and proceeded down the channel. We both surmise this event was when the Argentine pilot debarked, and the wind was high enough that we had to use our big ship as a windblock in order for him to transfer to the small boat. I was curious enough that I turned the TV on to the ship channel and saw this:

As you have read by now, we are traveling with friends on this cruise, one of whom is Jackie. We met Jackie and her husband Glenn on this very same ship back in 2012 when doing a Med/Greek Isles cruise. Sadly, Glenn died 7 months ago. But all through this trip, when the weather forecast has seemed iffy, or sometimes ominous, Jackie and I look at each other and say "we know a guy". And sure enough, the weather turned out fine, the seas turned calm, and the tour jet landed in Antarctica. All of those things have not happened in the last three cruises; ports we reached were missed, and tours were cancelled. Heck, Jackie and I were on the only tour on this cruise to reach the Penguins on Magdalena Island. So, think what you want, believe as you prefer, but we are both of the opinion that we're getting some extra assistance from her guy. And I don't think it was an accident that on this lovely, blue sky day, there was one cloud to the southeast when we arose, looking like this:

Yep, we know a guy. 🌞