12. Cape Horn

We arrived off Cape Horn on the way back to Ushuaia in 2002 on a really good day. There was only about a three metre swell, the storm clouds must have been fully 30 metres above the waves and the sleet was at least 30° to the horizontal! In 2008 it was superb for Cape Horn and I was actually able to photograph it.
Cape Horn is a place of great mystique due to the number of ships that have been lost there - at least 76 in the last 400 years - and the famous mariners who have 'doubled the Horn'. Sir Francis Drake came close to discovering it in 1578 when he was blown a long way south on the Pacific side after passing through the Straits of Magellan. In fact, he surmised that one could sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the south of Tierra del Fuego and the strait between there and the Antarctic Peninsular has, therefore, been named 'The Drake Passage'. However, Cape Horn itself wasn't discovered until 1616 when the Dutch mariner, Schouten, doubled it and named it after the town from whence he came. Le Maire, who lent his name to the strait between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island, was also on board.
Darwin also doubled the Horn in 1832, but I think that the most interesting mariner to sail around the Horn was William Bligh. He achieved this on his first voyage, as captain, to Tahiti to collect breadfruit to be taken to the West Indies as a staple for the slaves. Unfortunately, as a major portion of the crew preferred the company of Polynesian women to their captain, he was left to cross the Pacific in a longboat - one of the truly great voyages. When he got home via the Cape of Good Hope the Admiralty essentially said: 'Not good enough. Go and do it again'. This time he failed to get around Cape Horn so he went the other way via the Cape of Good Hope, south of Australia and Tasmania and north-east across the Pacific. He collected his breadfruit, took them around Cape Horn - this time he was going with the wind and the current - and north to the West Indies. However, the slaves refused to partake of breadfruit so the experiment was essentially a failure. So, what did the Admiralty do with Bligh next? Sent him to N.S.W. to be Governor! And the rest, as they say, is history.

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