We sighted Cape Horn around lunchtime on a calm and hazy afternoon, the famous mariner’s landmark signalling the end of our crossing of the Drake Passage and a return to civilisation. It says a little something for Antarctica’s incredible isolation and the silent otherworldly landscapes we saw down there that a remote town at the tip of Tierra del Fuego could represent the hustle and bustle of our own workaday worlds. That’s one of the marvels of travelling to Antarctica by sea – the days of wind and dark waves, albatrosses and vast empty horizons help to tamp Antarctica into its rightful place in our imaginations as one of the last great far-away places left to us. In a world where we’ve grown used to jetting about at six hundred miles an hour – New York for breakfast, London for tea – a voyage to Antarctica still means some serious travelling and long days spent in the effort; Tierra del Fuego is only the jumping-off point.
A pod of dusky dolphins greeted us at the mouth of the Beagle Channel and escorted the ship for a ways, leaping and frolicking in the waves. We leaned over the rails and watched them, basking in the unaccustomed sunshine and relative warmth of fifty-degree temperatures. The pilot joined us a little before dinner, and in the dusk we saw the lights of Ushuaia drawing nearer and the end of our great adventure on The Ice.
