Early morning, bright and breezy, birds in the air around us. Not a bad passage at all, just a little bumpy as we climbed up the continental shelf slope towards Cape Horn. Well, we couldn’t go to Cape Horn because it is in Chile, but we could look at it from sea and wonder what it has seen: whales and sailing ships, storms and gales, sunny days and soaring albatross.
We spent the afternoon in the Beagle Channel, land on either side of us, Chile to the left and Argentina to the right. And there were trees, very strange to see trees again, as well as a tree line of very low trees separating the forest from the peaks. After another lecture or two, some more whales, sei whales this time. But not just whales, the galley folks were serving Swedish pancakes. Mmmm! Cloudberry, sliced almonds, whipped cream, chocolate sauce or even homemade ice cream to go with them!
During the Captain’s Farewell Party we passed the world’s southernmost town, Puerto Williams on the Chilean side of the Beagle Channel (if we exclude McMurdo Base on the Ross Sea, a sprawling U.S. research station with hundreds of people). Puerto Williams is not much of a town, more like a naval station. They have part of the ship here, a Chilean ship named Yelcho, in which Ernest Shackleton came back to Antarctica to save his stranded men.
As dinner ended we were tying up to the dock in Ushuaia. Our sea voyage was finished, but for many the adventure was not—there was a town to explore and perhaps a local beer or three to be sampled. And so this day ended, pretty happy.
