Date Explored: February 16, 2016 – In Other Words, 02-16-2016. Kinda Cool.
Last I left off, we were visiting Pia Glacier and cruising through Glacier Alley. Preparing for today’s post, I see I noted in my travel journal for the night before February 15 (Pia Glacier):
Had some rollers during the night –> my full water glass fell to the floor, not sure where the water went!
Funny how we forget the little things. It’s a good thing I can read my handwriting (it’s very messy).
For Tuesday, February 16th, I wrote:
Woke @ 6 a.m. after a night of huge rolling waves and suited up only to receive the disappointing news that the winds were far too bad to go on Cape Horn. We got great views & photos but it’s not the same as stepping on the piece of earth itself.
- 200 km/hr winds was the max. they hit charting the course during the night.
- Gusting to 88 knots/100 km an hour in a.m.
So there you have it. Yes, a bit disappointing, Cindiana Jones did not get to walk on Cape Horn! But thanks to her (well, my) zoom lens, which is actually pretty old in the scheme of zoom lenses, she/I managed to get some great shots from the ship. The captain made every effort to circle the Cape and allow for amazing photos (considering it was such a blustery day) and we had some wild fun when the ship, um, leaned a little more than perhaps was anticipated. We were told that there was no way the zodiacs would stay afloat trying to get us to the stairs up to the Cape. Even if the zodiacs managed to get us to the stairs, the winds were so strong we wouldn’t be able to walk on the Cape.
Everyone was a good sport about it. There was one fellow who decided to take the return trip from Ushuaia (our drop off point the following morning) for a second run at the Cape, because he had piloted (I believe was the word he used) ships himself and had never landed at Cape Horn. It was on his bucket list, as it was on my mine. But Alan was very determined. I wonder if he got there?
Oh, if you look back up at Picture 1, you can see I’m wearing gumboots. The Stella Australis provides gumboots throughout the expeditions, if you wish, but I chose only to take some for the Cape Horn excursion, and then it didn’t work out. According to this article I found about the Via Australis (sister ship to the Stella), the Via manages to land at Cape Horn around 75% of the time. I believe we were advised that the Stella manages to land (lately) around 70% of the time. So we were among the 30% of the time where the weather conditions do not permit landing.
Would I take another cruise that offered the opportunity to land at Cape Horn? If I were independently wealthy and could combine another shot at Cape Horn with a trip to Antarctica, definitely yes. But unless I win the lottery, no. I consider myself very lucky to have circled the Cape. I would love to land there, but…funds.
Here’s a cool video of folks aboard the Stella Australis landing at Cape Horn the month before us, January 2016. The crew determines whether or not you can land, for us, at about 2 a.m. So even though the passengers, at 6 a.m. thought, “We can do this!”, they said no.
So imagine if these folks on YouTube were able to land and we weren’t a month later…how extreme our weather was when they were charting the possibility of landing.
I am a little jealous of those people. If you visit the YouTube video, that’s what the wind sounded like as I was trying to remain standing on the ship.
Yes, I am pretty amaze-balls. I wasn’t standing very steadily when I took the shot.
Agh, I wish I could have gone up top to the monument and signed my name in the book! Oh, dear, it seems if I were a millionaire, I would go back.
I’m wondering why they didn’t let us sleep in instead of making us get up and be on-deck at six only to find out we couldn’t disembark. I guess it’s like allowing a woman to “try and push out the baby” if he’s, say, a surprise breech, like my first one was, so she’ll feel like she actually accomplished something. If they didn’t get us up so we could see for ourselves how windy it was, and if they didn’t give us the report from the weather station about the 200/km hour winds during charting…maybe we wouldn’t have believed them?
I do know from my experience giving birth that, yes, as the OB said, it was advantageous for me “to try” pushing out my baby, even if I didn’t succeed.
And so it is with Cape Horn. “That Cindy, at least she tries.”
Et, voila, to show for it:
The rest of our morning was spent having a siesta, which I sorely needed. My motion sickness was having a great time with my head and stomach. It was like being spun around on a horizontal Ferris wheel at high speeds. My head hurts just thinking about it.
But, yeah, I would go back if I had the chance.
Next time, our afternoon excursion at Wulaia Bay, which was beautiful. The weather had cleared completely and we had a wonderful time.