Cape Horn cruise (76 images)

Around Cape Horn
Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, remains a maritime legend. From Ushuaia you can cruise in the fjords of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, venture in the Darwin Cordillera and explore remote islands, kingdom of sea birds and seals. A stunning trip from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas in Chile.

Messenger of the Deep South, an albatross soars above Cape Horn. Playing with the cold gusts coming from the Antarctic, the giant bird surfs the gray...
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Around Cape Horn
Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, remains a maritime legend. From Ushuaia you can cruise in the fjords of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, venture in the Darwin Cordillera and explore remote islands, kingdom of sea birds and seals. A stunning trip from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas in Chile.

Messenger of the Deep South, an albatross soars above Cape Horn. Playing with the cold gusts coming from the Antarctic, the giant bird surfs the gray skies of Tierra del Fuego before heading back for his kingdom, the Drake Passage and the Southern Ocean. Confortably protected on the bridge of the Mare Australis, a small Chilean cruise ship, I see the black cliffs of the "cape", mythical and impressive sentinel of the South American continent feared by generations of sailors who called him "Hard Cape" or "Cape of Storms". I still remember my first glimpse of Cape Horn when I was 10 years old. It was a picture cut from a book of Eric Tabarly, the famous french sailor. Today I'm in front of the real Cape Horn, a childhood dream ...
Union between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the "Horn" is beset by strong winds from the west blocked by the Andes and the gusts coming from the South Pole. Here, the seabed erects almost vertically and waves called can reach thirty feet high! Some boats were fighting days and sometimes weeks against the raging weather to "pass the Horn".
Today, Aeolus and Neptune are in good mood, the sea is calm enough to to disembark by zodiac on Horn Island *. A wooden staircase leads up from a small creek to a grassy and mossy plateau. The lighthouse keeper is happy to see us as we brought him mail and fresh vegetables. He and his wife and her baby daughter are based for one year on this confetti of southern land ! With the primary mission to fly the Chilean flag every morning ...
By a sliding wooden walkway we reach a memorial to the 15,000 missing sailors who died in these southern waters. We distinguish the east coast of Cape Horn and its highest peak (1200 feet). But the view is fugace as the sky darkens with the rage of a colossus. The guides urge us to come back fast the zodiac. Our beautiful boat to be around 70 m long, sail off Tierra del Fuego is an adventure is an advneture even on board of a powerful cruise boat.
Departing from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, we embarked two days earlier for a one week cruise in the maze of channels of Patagonia. After a stop at Cape Horn, The Mare Australis sailed up the northwest arm of Beagle Channel to reach the "Main street of the Glaciers". Holanda, Italia, Alemania, Francia and Romanche * ... We sail in silence long these glaciers coming from the summits of the Darwin Cordillera . A curious sea lion accompanies us for few minutes. Royal cormorants nest in the granite cliffs. On the coaslt line, two endemic - tortured by the wind and cold - cling to the cliffs.
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